Pedals in Clair de Lune

[oli006]

Hi everyone,
I am currently learning Clair de Lune as a performance piece and need some advice about pedalling.

I am practicing mostly on an upright piano with no sostenuto pedal. I have found that using the sustain pedal in areas such as bars 10, 15, 19 etc. with notes held in the LH as well as a second chord also in LH doesn't work well at all, it ends up way too 'murky' and loses the crispness of the melody. What is the best way to practice these sections seeing that I will be performing it on a grand piano with a sostenuto pedal? I practice occasionally on the grand and I am hoping to get on it more as I get closer to the performance/ exam.

Thanks in advance.

[nick.burke]

Many people will disagree I'm sure, but I would say definitely don't use a sotenuto pedal even if you are on a grand piano for this piece. You will need to figure out how much damper pedal to use and where exactly you place it, but with the right action on the damper pedal, it sounds beautiful.

[anacrusis]

I agree that the sostenuto pedal isn't needed here. You can make small shifts with the pedal that clear some of the "dirt" away without killing the resonance of the base entirely. Experiment how much you can shift without losing the "held" notes. Also, if you project the melody notes and play inner voices more softly you can get away with more lingering pedal because the louder upper notes will drown out some of the dirt, but the overall dynamic still sounds piano.