It’s so interesting how much I’m learning from the experience of editing Agnes’s etudes for publication. It’s making me feel like I’ve never really looked at a score carefully before in my life. That can’t be true; I’m certain that when I practice really well I do look for, and look at, every mark. But I really do feel like I’m looking at pedal markings in a way I never have. Agnes is very specific about when to put the pedal down…let me back up. The piano has a damper pedal that lets all the strings vibrate until you release it. If it’s down, the notes all ring, and if it’s up the notes stop as soon as you release the keys. A frequent way to pedal is to put the pedal down with the bass note, so you hear that bass throughout the next few notes; if you have a left hand that goes “boom chuck chuck” you’ll often pedal on the “boom” so that note sounds longer. So even though you move your hand away to play other notes too, the low notes might sound like boooooooooooooooom booooooooooooooooom boooooooooooooooooooom. But Agnes often (but not always!) has you put the pedal down after you release the low note, which makes it sound short, like boom (empty space) boom (empty space). So sometimes the low note is short, and sometimes it’s long. A way I’m enjoying thinking about it is imagining that my bass line is played by an actual upright bass, and sometimes the strings are plucked for the short notes but sometimes they’re bowed for the long notes.
The funny thing is that I could be completely wrong and overthinking it. I don’t think I am—I think she’s logical and clear about it—but I was just looking at the first edition of her etudes, the published one, and there’s a whole section where the pedaling in the printed version is the opposite of what her handwritten version says. In the handwritten version, each measure is
chord (pedal down) little notes (pedal up), so the chord is short,
but in the printed version, it says
(pedal down) chord little notes (pedal up), so the chord is long.
It’s the difference between a melody that goes laaaaaaaa laaaaaaa laaaaaa laaaaa and one that goes dit (silence) dit (silence) dit (silence) dit (silence).
This is where I could really use, say 150 years of aural tradition to know that everyone always plays it this way. And yes, I do have that in Agnes’s contemporaries like Brahms and Liszt…but now I’m mistrusting printed music and, like I said, feeling like I’ve just never looked so carefully at pedal marks before. Hopefully after I record and publish the etudes lots and lots of other people will play and record them too, and then people can disagree and do lots of different interpretations about them. But for now, it’s just me, just possibly overthinking, but having a good time doing it.
Meanwhile, I’m also memorizing, so I’m both looking at pages closely and also getting away from the page. It really is easier to play that way. For example, there’s one particular spot in the 4th etude where I don’t remember what the next chord is—it’s after a B major chord, and it’s at the top of the page, and when I play it looking at the score it feels inevitable and obvious, but I just don’t have it mapped yet. But I’m finding out where the holes are. Once I have it I’ll really have it, and I can’t wait to be able to play these pieces easily. I love how much better they’re making me; the main game of the 4th etude is fast repeated chords in both hands, and when I first started it felt impossible. Now most of it (not all of it!) feels easy. And I love how fun the etudes are to play. I’ve started posting little bits of them, and it’s fun to see people’s reactions. They’re going to be so much fun in concert.
I just turned in edits for etudes 5, 6, and 7, so I’m more than halfway through with the first round of edits. And I’ve decided I’m going to do an official premiere concert of all 12 etudes in September 2025, and then do lots of performances, and then record the album of them in the summer of 2026. Meanwhile, a singer and musicologist in Germany is helping figure out the texts for the unreadable songs, and I’m hoping—and hopeful!—that we can perform some of the songs in Berlin next March.
—-
After writing that, I just had a lesson with a student working on the slow movement of the Beethoven Pathetique sonata (speaking of long aural traditions) where I said, and believe: “Pedaling is going to change depending on the piano and the room and the day. You don’t have to do it exactly the same every time, and you can be convincing lots of different ways.”
So it’s important to think and overthink as part of the process…but then plans can change. In a way I feel I can be cavalier about pedaling through a measure where the notes are marked short in Beethoven (because if I get it wrong a million other people will do it the right way) but with Agnes I really want to make sure I can get it right. I wish I believed in seances, and I could summon her spirit and ask her questions about the marks in the score. How’s that for a Halloween season wish?