The two principal means by which he accomplished these reforms were
the constant employment of the pedal, and the use of extended and
scattered chords, in place of the crowded harmonies and the massive
movements of the older accompaniments.
Very few pianists seem to comprehend the exact function and importance
of the pedal. Many will be surprised to hear that the word "touch,"
which they suppose refers to the way the keys are struck by the
fingers, has quite as much to do with the feet--that is, the use of
the pedal--as with the fingers. No matter how thoroughly a pianist may
have trained his fingers, if he does not use the pedal as it was used
by Chopin and Schumann, he cannot reveal the poetry of their
compositions. In one of his letters Chopin notes that Thalberg played
_forte_ and _piano_ with the pedals, not with his hands, and some
piano bangers do so still; but every pianist who deserves the name
knows that loudness and softness must be regulated by the hands (and
very rarely the left-side pedal). Yet even among this better class of
pianists the notion seems to prevail that the main object of the
right-side pedal is to enable them to prolong a chord or to prevent a
confusion of consecutive harmonies.
Pages:
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38