Mastering Tricky Passages and answering your questions!

Peter Golemme Wow, very sophisticated of you to use the middle pedal in those pieces. I feel like a philistine brute for never having even considered using it in Rach's entire Sonata no.2😅. Can't wait to hear your preludes, with mid pedal and all!

Noel Nguyen Hi Noel. Quite often I feel like I have no business playing these Preludes, but it doesn't seem to stop me from trying!  I must say that your Sonata didn't seem to suffer from the absence of the middle pedal.  Can you say how YOU, as such an accomplished player, would approach these passages, either with or without the pedal?  I'd love to know that there was an alternative to my present approach, and in fact a 'brutish' solution might be much better suited to my innate disposition!

Peter Golemme  I haven't played those specific preludes so please take what I say with spoonfuls of salt😅.

Re: Op.23 no.8. One general rule of thumb with Rachmaninoff is that most of the time those soft 16th notes are considered "substrate" notes, to be played very soft and detached, with or without the sustain pedal but usually with. But very soft dynamic is the key here, because it is common practice to allow a bit of smudge, but if you play them too loud then it's a mess. Besides, you can see that those passages are usually in one harmony, with those little substrate notes shifting from one chord note to the other, often chromatically. For example bars 32-33 are really in the harmony of an Eb7 dominant chord, even if they don't resolve in Ab but rather with a nice gm surprise in bar 34. So in bar 32, I'd simply use the right pedal at the beginning of the bar then switch when the alto voice hits F then G. Meanwhile the Db in the left hand is held by your finger (whichever finger you want, could be your nose). Then on bar 33 I'd switch the right pedal at the beginning of the bar, then when the alto voice hits G for the first and third times of the bar. 

I'll look at the other prelude later 😅.

Noel Nguyen Hey Noel that's very interesting & helpful. Don't worry, I understand it's just your impression from looking at the score-- but I'd still like to reserve the right to blame you if I mess up a performance. 

I totally get what you're saying about the harmonies being more or less stable within the various 1 or 2-measure phrases, but there are those little ascending stepwise lines, generally appearing on the 4th 16th notes of each group that I'm trying to emphasize ever so slightly, especially mm. 36-37 & 39-40 where those notes form part of an Eb Lydian flat7 scale, a scale much beloved by jazz players. But if you look too closely at Rach's music you'll find that you want to emphasize EVERYTHING it's all so beautifully put together.

I've also heard talk of these lighter 'substrate' notes -- though the term I've used for them was "murmuring" -- and also the concept of half- or quarter- pedaling in Rachmaninoff -- though I always thought it was because you never had time to put the pedal all the way down [just kidding].

But I think the break-through suggestion is the one about the nose.  I'm going to try that on those half notes.  In fact Dominic mentioned in his 'Russian School" lesson that Rachmaninoff actually suggested this to Josef Hoffman while trying to persuade him to perform the 3rd Concerto, after JH protested that his hands were too small.  Unfortunately my nose is not quite as long as I'd like for this purpose, so I'm going to tell a few lies and see whether I can get it to grow overnight.  Here goes;
"These Preludes are a piece of cake".

"Try as you might, you can't tell whether it's me or Horowitz playing them"    

that ought to do it!  thanks again1

Peter Golemme Peter, this is such a great question.  I've worked on Op. 23 No. 7 in c minor where the low C must be sustained for two and a half bars.  The low C can never make it through even a bar so I'm guessing you have found the solution here.  I'm very interested in seeing how this works because as you say, it can be tricky or temperamental in getting it to work consistently?

Doug I've experimented with the middle pedal on the C Minor and it works well on those bass notes on the first page.  But you have to practice it over and over to get the timing right and avoid blurring the sustain with all the surrounding notes.

Then you start to see all kinds of other places where it might help, but you have to be careful about overdoing it. Otherwise the whole piece (in my case anyway) becomes all about hammering down that middle pedal at just the right spot when you should be thinking about the grander scale of sweep and gesture and emotional peaks.

I tried it on the D Major to isolate the main melody notes, and quickly determined that it wasn't suited there -- too much flailing and swinging of limbs to achieve too little musical effect, resulting in a major and tense distraction from just letting the melody sing out through the background of overlapping harmonies.  On the other hand there are places in the F Major where I think it's indispensible-- in particular I use it in measures 7, 9, 13 and 42 to hang onto a low bass note in the context of an otherwise very clean and quiet texture.  There are couple of places in the D minor where it is also quite useful, mainly in the Coda.

As Noel has mentioned and Dominic as well, there is a certain flexibility with Rachmaninoff's scores that you don't have with Bach or Mozart for example.  it's OK to blur some places with a little more (regular Right) pedal than we are accustomed to permitting ourselves, and pianists have developed techniques of half- and quarter- pedaling - which are still a mystery to me-- to allow you to hang onto some notes when your hands can't possibly remain there, while minimizing the blur of too many contrasting harmonies..

Noel Nguyen Noel Nguyen excellent suggestions all the way around! thanks again!

Peter Golemme In all seriousness, let's wait to hear what Dominic has to say. If he says I'm delusional with my suggestions, your nose stays minuscule.

Good thought about half pedalling btw, it does prevent from creating the mess you'd hear from many amateurs incl. myself sometimes.

Noel Nguyen Well, "miniscule" might not be exactly the right word in my case, but point taken. 

I have no doubt that if Dominic is able to get to this question he will have some very wise words to say about it.  I always find something extremely useful and helpful (and practical to boot) in these sessions, even when he's addressing questions of others about pieces with which I have no familiarity.

Dominic Cheli Thanks so much for answering my question. It’s really helpful to get your advice and much appreciated. 😊🤚