Listening to the Piano Pedal: Acoustics and Pedagogy in Late Nineteenth-Century Contexts

Abstract

Until the 1870s the practice of artistic pedaling in piano performance lacked guidelines and was left largely to the whim of individual pianists. The kinship that developed between science and music, drawn largely from Hermann von Helmholtz’s experiments on musical sound, left a positive imprint on the art of pedaling. This article elucidates the contribution of Hans Schmitt by way of his acoustical analysis in Das Pedal des Claviers (1875). In conclusion the article probes Schmitt’s generative role in shaping the practice of piano pedaling. It demonstrates the potential for the collaboration of acoustics and music to enhance piano performance.

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