On 6 Oct 2003 at 10:02, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote: > 1. Scriabin meant what he wrote and you have yet to figure out why > (such as a 'missing' chord resolution in one of the early Beethoven > sonatas that one pianist 'plays' as a ghost chord by touching the keys > but not actually making a sound).
Well, having just pulled out my Scriabin Preludes score (Dover), and searched for a Db Prelude with a Chopin Nocturne-like texture that has a senza pedal marking in it, I've found only Op. 17, #3, and I'm afraid I can't see the ambiguity in the pedalling that Michael asserts (though I see other ambiguities as to what the pedalling can mean). There are indeed only two damper pedal markings in the piece, one in m. 5 and a second in m. 7. The one in m. 7 is on the 2nd 8th note of the measure and clearly indicates, I think, that the bass note to be sustained is not the initial lowest note of the arpeggio (Eb) but the 2nd note, Bb. Now, taking that indication and moving back to m. 5, if we apply the same principle, the Ped marking on the 4th 8th note would indicate that the sustained bass is not the original Db, but the Ab. This, of course, ignores the SENZA on the first beat of the measure. Now it seems to me that Michael read SENZA on beat one as going with PED. on the 4th 8th note as SENZE PED, whereas to me, it's quite clear that they are two completely different markings. Senza clearly means "no pedal on the downbeat," which is in contrast to the implied pedalling of the four previous measures (though it's open to interpretation whether or not the pedal should be held throughout all of each measure or just for the first 2 beats, since the 3rd beat of is, arguably, a different harmony each time (I don't have a proper piano to play this on, just a keyboard without sustain pedal and lacking the proper range). So, my interpretation would be: 1. In all measures, the pedal goes down on the first beat. 2. In measures where this is not the case, there's a pedal marking. Now, this does not mean that the pedal is held down throughout the whole measure in all cases, just that the pedal goes down to sustain a particular note of the arpeggio as the bass. And in the two cases where there is a pedal marking, to my eye, it is clearly there to show that a different note of the arpeggio should be sustained as the bass note. Now, musically, that makes a great deal of sense in the first occurrence, where the sustained Ab makes a strong V to I motion in the next measure (m. 5 to 6). That would be the first bass movement at all, as the first four measures all have a tonic pedal. But does not make so much sense in the second instance (m. 7), where the low Eb would make a strong V to the Ab chord of m. 8. On the other hand, the sustained Bb moving to the Ab (ii6/5) means the bass line moves up by step (just as it does from m. 6 to the first, and unsustained, note of m. 7, Db to Eb), and reserves the strong bass motion by 4th/5th until the next measure (m. 9, from Ab to Eb). Also of note is at the return of the ornamented opening material (m. 19), there is no pedal marking at all in the corresponding location (m. 23 and m. 25), despite it being very similar in many ways. However, on closer examination, it is clear that the passage that corresponds to mm. 5-8 has been expanded and the harmony altered (mm. 23-27), because the return cannot move on to the B material this time (instead it returns to a reworking of the opening, pedal-tone- dominated material, serving as subdominantish coda). The bass movement this time pretty clearly follows the "bass is first note of measure" so that the standard pedalling on the downbeat works without needing any other indication. And the measure where the bass line at the beginning as the ii6/5 chord instead of ii7 (m. 7) is clearly meant to be ii7 this time, as there is a strong 4-3 suspension from the previous measure (though with the Bb bass it would be a 9-8 suspension, I guess). So, there's ambiguity there, but I don't see anything that indicates that there should be a suspension of pedal at all. This is a case where clearer notation would have removed all ambiguity. If the SENZA had said SENZA PED. and then there was a PED marking on the 4th 8th note, all ambiguity would have been removed. Of course, that wasn't what was printed, so maybe my entire interpretation is wrong. But I don't think it is, as it makes harmonic sense. -- David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
