Pedaling Help in Schubert Impromptu Op. 90 No. 2

[owenchan]

Hello all! This is my first post here - thank you to those who read/reply!

So, I've been working on this piece for a while and I cannot figure out how to get the pedaling correct in Schubert's Impromptu Op. 90 No. 2 (

).

I can't get the pedal soft enough to not get that ugly scalar blurry sound. I've tried half pedaling, pedaling on the second beat through the measure, and changing within the measure (that didn't sound so great...).

I was hoping that you all had some suggestions for this because it's quite a predicament knowing the song very well but not knowing how to pedal it.

Owen

[chopinlover01]

Great choice of repertoire.
For this impromptu, you may consider using no pedal except for to tie the bass notes together, -thereby emphasising the phrasing of the LH: E flat- B flat,  F-B flat, etc.
I also recommend making sure your RH is legato beyond belief; the line should almost melt downwards.. perhaps not the right imagery. Imagine the line growing as you go closer to the middle of the piano. Perhaps, PM me and we can discuss it more in depth?

[8_octaves]

Hi,

I think pedal-usage in the impromptus of Schubert may be a difficult thing, since he rarely wrote explicite "pedalling"-instructions into them.

I have both the Henle ( op.90 + op. 142, and mom. mus. ) and the Wiener Urtext Editions ( of op. 90 ) of the impromptus, and I can only find "pedale" or "con pedale" as written instructions in op. 90, 3 ( but there, only in the Wiener Urtext Ed., not in Henle! ) and op. 142,1.

So one could assume, that pedal usage must have been existant in these works, since Schubert's piano should have provided pedals (or at least knee-levers ) , and it may be a task of "taste", not being easily transferred from one point of view to another, when or how pedal(s) should be brought into action in Op. 90,2.

Op. 90, 2 seems to suggest "jeu perle", as well, which may suggest not too much usage of the (rightmost) pedal, but may be sometimes, very exactly and "measured." But, as I said, all in all: it may be hard to figure out - but that perhaps is what Schubert, the master, wanted.  

Cordially, 8_octaves!

[roberth]

Hello all! This is my first post here - thank you to those who read/reply!

So, I've been working on this piece for a while and I cannot figure out how to get the pedaling correct in Schubert's Impromptu Op. 90 No. 2 (

).

I can't get the pedal soft enough to not get that ugly scalar blurry sound. I've tried half pedaling, pedaling on the second beat through the measure, and changing within the measure (that didn't sound so great...).

I was hoping that you all had some suggestions for this because it's quite a predicament knowing the song very well but not knowing how to pedal it.

Owen

It's amazing to me that Schubert wrote so much wonderful piano music when one considers that he didn't actually own a piano himself until very late in his life. He would have to go over to a neighbor to try out something if he wanted to hear how it worked on the piano. Also, by all reports he wasn't a great pianist (no wonder if he had no piano on which to practise ). Perhaps this turned out to be beneficial to his composing because he didn't try to make anything easy for the piano?

As others have suggested, try using no pedal at all until approx. bar 16 where the theme is repeated an octave higher than at the beginning. Most pianos have no dampers after about e''', so the higher the right hand melody, the more pedal you can get away with.

Key to doing this, of course, is to ensure that your left hand can play the part legato without any pedal, which means you have to choose a fingering which allows you to do that. HINT: Start with the 4th finger on the E-flat. As soon as the intervals become too large to use legato, at bar 6, Schubert did help out by writing the bass notes as quarter notes (crochets for Brits) which you can play staccato. The accent on the 2nd beat of every measure, sometimes only implied as in the beginning of the piece, is a kind of common thread which runs through the entire piece; but it actually starts at bar 6! It is most noticeable in the section in B minor where he writes the accents explicitly.

Hope this is helpful!

[quantum]

Just touch the pedal and make very fine movements with your ankle.  Trying to find a way for deeper pedaling to work would be too complex.  Use your ears to guide your pedaling, as opposed to the metrical divisions in the score.  It is more of a listening workout than an ankle workout.