Critically Editing ‘The Art of Piano Pedaling’ Forschungs-Mittwoch #201

Although the term “secret” and its cognates are not uncommon in The Art of Piano Pedaling (1967), Nadezhda Golubovskaya’s treatise exhibits an analytical predisposition often associated with Leningrad musicianship. This is evident, for example, in her minute attention to the components of piano tone, her recurrent allusions to the music’s linear structure, and her discreet use of concepts borrowed from Yavorsky's “intonation theory”. Little known in the West, the treatise has nonetheless retained a canonical status in the Russian-speaking world. 

Aiming at an English translation and critical edition relevant to contemporary practitioners and scholars, I subject the treatise to a close semiotic reading, fleshing out networks of practices and influences often invisible to Western readers today, while placing Golubovskaya's word choices in conversation with contemporary Western discourse on structure, timbre, and expression, without eliding epistemic differences. Beyond her structural reasoning, special critical attention is also given to her timbral metaphors and their cultural contingency, her pointed critique of acoustic criteria for pedaling, and her principled distrust of pedaling notation.

Speaker

Yannis Rammos 

Host

Martin Skamletz, Institute Interpretation