Pedal and rest simultaneously

[ranjit]

So, I've been learning the Chopin Waltz Op 64 no 2 recently.
What should you do when there is a rest in the melody, but a sustain pedal marking underneath? If I keep the sustain pedal depressed, the rest is not audible.

[brogers70]

Keep the sustain pedal down. To see what the rest is for, do this experiment. Play just the right hand, without pedal. First play those notes as a dotted eighth and a sixteenth. Then play them as an eighth and a sixteenth rest followed by a sixteenth. You should feel a different character to the sixteenth, even apart from the rest itself. Now do it again with the pedal down. Even with the pedal down the sixteenth will keep its different character. That character, I think, is what Chopin was aiming for, and the pedal does not prevent it from happening.

[lostinidlewonder]

If pedal is held down it makes no difference ins sound if you release the note or not, it's all imaginary in that realm. The rest serves a practical use, makes it easier to read rather than having a dotted quaver.  It also helps to play the semi quaver connected to the following note if you have released the previous note.

[keypeg]

Something I had to get used to is that some piano music indicates how you are to physically play it, rather than how it is supposed to sound.  I don't think we see that with other instruments (?).  It's like when you see staccato with notes that are combined by one pedal.  You can't possibly produce a staccato sound while holding the sustain.  But you can do a staccato motion which in combination with the pedal will produce the sound the composer was after.  Chopin was a pianist, and notated with a pianist's mind, as I understand it.

[brogers70]

Something I had to get used to is that some piano music indicates how you are to physically play it, rather than how it is supposed to sound.  I don't think we see that with other instruments (?). 

Lute tablature. Baroque violin with alternate tunings, scordatura, like G-g-D-d rather than G-D-A-E (written to show you where you would put your fingers assuming normal tuning even though the actual pitches produced are not the pitches written).

[ranjit]

Sorry for reviving this thread.

In some interpretations of this piece, the pedal is used, whereas in others the pedal is lifted. I'm confused once again as to how to play this measure.

[brogers70]

Sorry if this seems obvious, but why not try it both ways and see which way you prefer? Alternatively, trace that pedal marking back through the early editions (on IMSLP) and see if it is Chopin's or if it was added by a later editor.