Help with pedaling and tempo in Transcendental Etude 10

[octavius_trillson]

Hi, I’m an amateur pianist and my knowledge of musical terms is poor so forgive my unclear descriptions.

I’m currently learning Liszt’s 10th Transcendental Etude, and I wanted some advice regarding pedaling and tempo. I listened to Berezovsky’s recording of this and I’d like to emulate that, but he seems to use the right pedal a lot (or are my ears deceiving me?) even though pedal markings are scarce in the score, and he changes his tempo quite a bit. Now I can (almost) play this convincingly if I use the pedal but without the pedal it’s difficult to get the left hand sections smooth and perfectly legato at that tempo. It is especially difficult to play what happens in the first two bars of the piece smoothly.

What are your thoughts regarding pedaling in this piece and is a strict tempo necessary? Any other advice about the piece is also welcome.

See here for Berezovsky's performance:

[pbryld]

I think he plays it too fast. There is no passion nor much excitement. Listen to Jorge Bolet's rendition. It's marvelous.

[octavius_trillson]

In my opinion Berezovsky's recording is exciting as hell, but I guess a lot of that excitement comes from actually watching him play and not necessarily the sound he is creating. He's playing for a live audience so it's understandable that he'd want it to be explosive and flashy as people are actually looking at him. Anyway I listened to Bolet's recording, the sound quality is pretty bad but I'd say his left hand passage-work is excellent and I've gotten some ideas, of what to bring out in the left hand, from listening to it, so thanks for that and thanks again for replying to my first post! Now I just need to solve the pedal problem. 

[pianowolfi]

Ha! I just love, love so much these recordings! To me they're passionate and intense!
Usually when I come to this region (Roque-d'Anthéron) I have sweat dropping from my nose from bicycling, or from the sheer heat And I feel just like doing nothing anymore until the next morning
But Berezovsky plays passionately and note perfect, under these conditions! This is just super human! It's just incredible! I really love these, and I truly admire Berezovsky!

[pianowolfi]

Anyway, such questions about pedal....actually you have to find the right pedalling yourself, according to your experience, according to the particular piano and location etc.. I mean well, do you really think that a composer writes every pedal and pedal release into the score? That's simply not possible.

I remember that I wondered about Chopin, when I first tried to play one of his Waltzes, I tried everything I could, exactly according to the pedal marks in the score, and it just sounded awful

Learn how to use syncopated pedal, and how to use the pedal in general.

[octavius_trillson]

Haha I thought the torrents of sweat were purely from the intense playing he was doing, I guess the weather/humidity was a factor too.

I had a similar experience with a Chopin waltz, where every pedal marking was written on the score and I could never get all the pedaling right and at the same time play beautifully, and then I've played a nocturne with virtually no pedal markings which sounded so beautiful when I used the pedal in certain sections.
It's just I'm always reluctant to use the sustain pedal, except where explicitly indicated on the score, because I read somewhere that one shouldn't use it as a 'crutch' and that being quite vague, it was left to my imagination to conjure images in my mind of me limping along to the music, sustain pedal crutch on one arm, score in another, audience watching pitifully as I fell over myself from bar to bar, trying desperately to make it through the music. I suppose I've neglected to learn how to pedal properly, maybe it's time I did so, I'll take a look at syncopated pedaling thank you for your help!

[pianowolfi]

The pedal serves basically two purposes:

1. To play legato where it's not possible to play legato with the fingers, for instance when you want to connect chords.
2. To enrich the sound.

The second purpose seems often to be neglected by teachers. But it is essential when it comes to the interpretation of Romantic and later (like impressionistic) music. The pedal makes the strings resonate sympathetically, giving space and depth to the sound. To become good at this sort of pedalling it's important to discern where a composer only intended to have the harmonic progressions connected to each other and where he requires the sound enriching pedal, sometimes even blurring the harmonic progressions. Beethoven for instance generally only writes pedal marks where he desires the latter effect, as for instance in the beginning of the "Tempest" sonata. Chopin writes much more pedal marks, not only the "special effects" and it's obvious that the old way to indicate pedal (with a Ped. and *) is not exact enough and needs often to be interpreted as syncopated pedal, means that you need to hold the pedal exactly until the beginning of the new harmony, lift it exactly when you press the new chord and then immediately press it down again!