Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Is pedal necessary in playing Bach? That’s a question I received from a viewer. Most of you probably know that the piano wasn’t invented during Bach’s lifetime. However, Bach did try the very earliest incarnation of what was ostensibly a piano. But he never wrote any music specifically for the piano.
Bach’s favorite keyboard instrument was the clavichord, because of how expressively it could play.
Because there wasn’t an escapement on the clavichord, you could actually impart vibrato on notes after you played them! Of course, the piano has escapement. That means the hammers escape the strings after striking them. This allows for a wide range of dynamics. But the sustain pedal didn’t exist during Bach’s lifetime.
What I’m going to do today is a really interesting experiment!
I’m counting on you to help me with this! I’m going to play the first section of the Bach French Suite No. 5. The first movement has a repeat. The first time I’m going to play it with no pedal at all. Then I’m going to play it with lots of pedal. But I’m going to be using little tiny bursts of pedal, just to enhance the tone. The questions are, can you hear the difference? And do you have a preference? Watch the video, then let me know your impression in the comments here at LivingPianos.com and on YouTube.
Watch the video to take part in the experiment!
So I’ve shown you two examples of the same exact section. You probably wonder what I was doing with my foot there, fluttering up and down so quickly. Well, in this piece, as in so much Bach, there’s so much counterpoint going on that it’s difficult to really use much pedal. If you’re playing Chopin, for example, there is obviously so much you can do with pedaling. In fact, you need to use the pedal! If I were to play, for example, the Chopin G minor Ballade without the pedal, it would sound pretty thin. In music like that, the sustain pedal is absolutely essential to hold out notes for harmonies to blend together. But the music of Bach wasn’t written with the sustain or damper pedal in mind. So it works just fine without the pedal.
Why would you want to use pedal in Bach?
In Bach, you use short bursts of pedal to enhance longer notes to make them sustain longer. Because, as you know, when you play a note on the piano, it’s always dying away. As pianists, we’re always fighting that. We are trying to create a singing sustained line for the illusion of continuity, like in the human voice or the bow of a violin. The pedal helps to enrich the sound of key notes so that you get a sense of the line. Why just little flutters of pedal? Because to do any kind of substantial pedaling where the pedal stays down for any length of time, would blur the counterpoint together. And that’s not what you want. I’m really interested in reading your comments on this! Which way do you like better? Could you hear a difference at all? Let me know! Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.
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31 thoughts on “Should You Use Pedal in Bach?”
My students learn everything without pedal. When it is needed on the Romantic period literature, they may add it after the pieces have been learned.
That is excellent. Pedal is the reward for doing good work!
Being very familiar with Bach, I prefer NO pedal. Playing WITH the pedal is pleasant to listen to, but not the expected “Bach Touch” which cannot be accomplished with that much pedal. I appreciate hearing what Bach heard when he composed.
If you are a good player, you can pull it off!
If I had a harpsichord, I would never play Bach on my Knabe. I like sticking to period instruments for that period at least.
We should all strive to be good players. That’s a good part of the point in studying to begin with. 🙂
It is incredibly insightful playing Bach and other Baroque composers’ keyboard music on the harpsichord. However, I imagine Bach would have been thrilled to have had the opportunity to play his music on a modern piano!
Very true. That said, I still like to hear his music on the instruments of his day. I’ll have that discussion with Bach when I get to heaven. 🙂
Yes, I hear the difference. And I prefer it with the pedal. Subjectively I’d say it’s a little more mellow with the pedal.
Maybe the thing to do is look to pianists who record or perform Bach professionally. I know there are videos of Glenn Gould, but I’m not sure if they show what he’s doing with his feet. And I don’t know who the others might be, since it’s not really my style.
I studied with several world class concert pianists from my father, Morton Estrin, to Constance Keene, Ruth Slenczynska, John Ogdon, James Tocco, and Michel Block. There wasn’t a consensus as to the use of pedal in Bach from these pianists. However, we all agree that Bach must be practiced so that it sounds great with no pedal!
OK, if there’s no consensus, then the answer is to do it both ways — let the audience choose the version they prefer.
You have to consider many things, from the specific piece of music, the quality of the piano, and the acoustics of the room. Some pieces of Bach lend themselves more to using the pedal than others. For example, I see no value in using any pedal in any of the 2 part Inventions.
I play Bach with pedal the way you demonstrated. The harpsichord has quite a bit of resonance and I feel we can imitate that. It definitely doesn’t sound „clean“ like a piano. Authenticity is important but I think we can use the pedal and still play „clean“ as you did. It sounds richer. I can imagine Bach using the pedal if he’d known a modern instrument!
That is a distinct possibility. When playing Bach on the piano, it is actually a transcription when you consider the vast difference in the keyboard instruments of the time. So it really is a judgement call how to deal with all of the aspects of a modern piano, not the least of which is having the control of dynamics by the force the keys are depressed (in contrast to the harpsichord!)
My comment is surely anathema for most pianists, but I actually like playing and hearing Bach with rythm variations (whereas the name of the game is a steady tempo), and strong accent on some notes (a la LangLang).
I would be curious to know what you think of this heresy…
I would have to hear specific examples to understand how this may work.
I went to a workshop conducted by Anthony Newman, organist and harpsichordist, among other things. He plays like lightning, and I am in total awe when I listen to him. Anyway, he said because organ and harpsichord do not allow individual dynamics by the speed at which you play a key, you have to find other ways of expressing dynamics in a piece. He said, prolong the first note in a surprise change in harmony or whatever. So I applied this when I snuck in to play on a harpsichord at a recital, playing Bach’s first Prelude in C from Well Tempered Clavier. Whenever the key changed, or it did something else unusual, I prolonged the first note. One of the performers was standing right there, and she said, “You are very talented.” The point is, when you do this, it lends expressiveness to a piece played on an instrument of this kind, and it is probably the best way to express yourself in compositions by Bach.
You may be aware of my Living Piano:Journey Through Time: Historic Concert Experience in which I play concerts going through the period styles on the authentic instruments in period costumes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dfsxcd3cA0&ab_channel=LivingPianosVideos So I have performed harpsichord countless times. When playing harpsichord (and organ) you can achieve the illusion of dynamics by how long each note is held as you mentioned. This is also possible in longer phrases by how detached or connected notes are played in individual lines of counterpoint. Naturally, having more than one manual also aids in this tremendously: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVU7NlPyrxc&ab_channel=LivingPianosVideos
Yes, I remember you as Scarlatti. Other than that, I’m way behind watching videos. I’ll get there. Thank you.
There are well over 1,300 videos on my channel. So you have a long way to go!
2023.02.06
Dear Robert,
I clearly can hear the difference between Bach without pedal and with pedal.
I prefer Bach without the pedal, just as it would have sounded to him and his listeners.
Of course, the Chopin must be played with the pedal.
When I play Bach on my digital piano, I don’t touch the damper pedal.
Sincerely,
Charles
It is best to practice Bach without pedal in any case.
With Bach the pedal does not enhance the sound. However, with Chopin it adds beauty. Thanks so much for your tutorials. 6
With Chopin, and other 19th century composers who wrote for the piano, many scores necessitate the use of the pedal in order to hold notes since they require the pedal to sustain notes that can’t be held with the fingers.
OK, my thoughts. In the Bach, use of the pedal to sustain a note in the left hand over several notes in the right hand makes the notes in the right hand less crisp, a little blurry. Not Bach-like. I heard a slight difference, and that was the main thing. When you play a note but don’t let it go, the hammer does leave the string, but it doesn’t stop the string from vibrating. The damper does, and as long as you hold the note down, the damper doesn’t fall. The main thing the pedal would do would be to release the damper on the upper strings, so that the overtones would sound. This can enhance the richness of the note, but it wouldn’t cause the left hand notes to be prolonged longer. That’s just the physics of it. With my hearing loss, I don’t hear the upper overtones well anyway. So for me, the difference is not great. Nevertheless, play it how you like. Given Bach’s approval of playing his compositions on different instruments, both approaches are valid.
When playing Bach well with good fingering, the difference of using pedal is very subtle. For people who have always played Bach with the pedal, playing without pedal will sound drastically different until a true legato is achieved which requires working hard to discover good fingering solutions.
I totally agree. And to answer another of your questions, I always play Bach without pedal. And I suppose I do somewhat better because I also play organ, and to get a sustained note there, you HAVE to hold the key down for as long as you want to hear the note.
Organists and harpsichordists have a distinct advantage in understanding how to approach the keys when playing Bach on the piano.
I actually preferred the first sample, without pedal. To me, it sounds “cleaner”.
Both were beautifully played!
Glad you like it!
In the hands of an expert pianist, both versions sound good and actually fairly similar. Adding just a touch of pedal keeps the spirit of Bach while adding some sustain. So both are fine, but if I had to choose, I slightly prefer the no pedal, but only because an expert pianist played the piece.
That’s really interesting (and thank you!) I would have expected more people to prefer Bach with pedal. For those out there who do play Bach, I would be interested to know how many play without the pedal.