Piano pedal vertical alignment

[NeeraWM]

How important is it for pedal markings to be vertically aligned (or even partially so) in a given system?
Sibelius aligns them because of Magnetic Layout, so no real musical decision.
Dorico just doesn't align them, opting instead for a minimum distance from the nearest object above, as shown here:

Screenshot 2024-07-16 at 13.50.44.png (261.9 KiB) Viewed 4510 times

I'm not a pianist so a personal and very opinionated feedback would be most welcome.
Thank you!

[David Ward]

John Ruggero will have a well informed opinion on this; but I'm pretty sure that Dorico is correct in what it does with these.

[John Ruggero]

Hi, Neera. Do you mean horizontally aligned? As David Ward said, Dorico has it generally right (sort of. About that a little later.) They need not be horizontally aligned.

This comes up a lot and I once put it like this: pedal markings are aligned if there is no good reason that they shouldn't be. And there are many good reasons why the are often not aligned, such as keeping them equidistant from the lowest note of a sequential pattern. The idea is to keep them close to the staff where they are most easily taken in by the eye.

Now the "sort of". Less well known is that the pedal release sign follows the same rule. That is, it should be aligned with the Ped. if there are no good reasons that it shouldn't be. And again, there are many good reasons similar to the one stated above. Unfortunately, Dorico hasn't matured to the point where it can deal with that aspect. So the Ped. * sequences look "stiff" with the Ped. and * forced to align with each other in pairs.

As far as the actual example above, the first Ped. is well placed, but I think I would move its release symbol closer to the staff, aligning it with the next Ped. Then the following three pairs are OK, but I think I would move all of them a little closer to the notes. There is also the possibility of aligning all of these pedal releases with the following Ped., creating a "smoother" appearance.

[NeeraWM]

Thank you, John.
I used to say horizontally aligned as well but then I learned that since their Y-position is on the same "horizontal plane", that may be best described as vertically aligned. Or perhaps I'm just wrong, I don't know. What I meant is whether they should sit on the same horizontal plane in any given system!

I see what you mean by the "sort of". One way around it would be to have two pedal lines, one with suppressed playback, the first showing only Ped, the other only the star, and move them accordingly. I will take care of this after this round of proofreading on this piece is over and possibly submit more examples.
Do you think that, in general, the release symbol should be on the same level of a following Ped if they are very close (that is, consecutive rhythmic positions)?

[John Ruggero]

Do you think that, in general, the release symbol should be on the same level of a following Ped if they are very close (that is, consecutive rhythmic positions)?

Yes.

Here is some good material to study:

https://imslp.org/wiki/Studies_after_Fr ... C_Leopold)

[NeeraWM]

Fascinating, thank you!
Here's Gould, page 333:
Consequently, consecutive pedal—and-release signs for a particular pedal on the same system will not necessarily align on the same horizontal level. However, an individual pedal-and—release instruction should always align, for clarity. If there is room, consecutive signs may be aligned, but the main consideration should be that no sign is too far below the stave—or it may go unnoticed.

So... Gould strikes back.

[John Ruggero]

Not to beat this into the ground, but, for the record, in dealing with the spatial relationship of the Ped. and * signs, Gould is not describing standard practice that I see in most piano music that has pedaling indicated with the Ped. * system.

It is very often necessary to place the release and the Ped. on a different levels and for many different reasons, all having to do with "clarity" and spatial considerations. It's nice when they can align, but often they can't. Here is an example from the Schenker edition of Beethoven's op. 57.3. The pedal releases need to be precisely on the rests. "For clarity" they are brought closer to the staff than the Ped.s:

op 57.3 pedaling.png (480.56 KiB) Viewed 4385 times

In the first part of the 19th century the pedal signs were placed between the two staves, which made aligning them a little easier, but also created other issues.

[NeeraWM]

Great point!
Indeed, I’ve engraved works by this composer from both his early production (1810s) and his late one (1850s).
The first ones have pedal markings in the middle of the grand staff, while the second ones are all below.

I will use two pedal lines and hide end/start to achieve this, until Dorico allows us to manage it with a single object.

[Anders Hedelin]

Just a thought about Schenker's edition – the vertical placement of the pedal and release signs look fine to me, but I'm not convinced by the horizontal positioning.
Here's Beethoven's MS:

Appassionata mov. 3.JPG (41.91 KiB) Viewed 4340 times

From what I can see B. has taken care to place the release marks precisely after the last eighth note plus eighth rest of each arpeggio. Now, in bar 182 that's at the whole rest, but in bars 184 and 186 it's at the quarter rest on the upper staff. Schenker places all of them at the whole rest which I don't think is exactly what B. intended.

Edit: Beethoven's placement of the release marks is undeniably easier to see when they occur between the staves. Below the lower staff - tricky.

Edit 2: Schenker places the release mark in 204 after the beginning of the measure. That may be a good pianistic interpretation, but an interpretation all the same, and not what Beethoven actually wrote (having the mark aligned with the low G).

[John Ruggero]

I agree with you, Anders. The Schenker edition is not correct here, which might be engraving errors or an "interpretation" by Schenker. Actually the intention in the Schenker edition seems to me to be for the releases to come on the right hand eighth rests in ms. 185-190 (the measure numbers come at the end of the measures rather than the beginning, which has caused consternation and was changed in the revised edition). While this is perhaps musical effective, as you said, Beethoven seems to want the pedal to ring as an l.v. beyond the eighth rest as first seen in 178-179. Then for the top to suddenly drop out on playing the low G in 204, which is far more effective than what Schenker has. Here is the complete passage in the manuscript and the first edition, which also doesn't get it all quite right, followed by what I engraved in my edition:

op 57.3 MS.png (1.08 MiB) Viewed 4296 times

op 57.3 1st ed.png (767.21 KiB) Viewed 4296 times

op 57.3 Ruggero.png (279.83 KiB) Viewed 4296 times