THE SOFT-PEDAL SENTIMENT.


You exclaim: "What is that?--a sentiment for the soft pedal! a sentiment
of any kind in our times! most of all, a musical sentiment! I have not
heard of such a thing in a concert-room for a long time!"

When the foot-piece to the left on the piano is pressed down, the
key-board is thereby moved to the right; so that, in playing, the
hammers strike only two of the three strings, in some pianos only one.
In that way the tone is made weaker, thinner, but more singing and more
tender. What follows from this? Many performers, seized with a piano
madness, play a grand bravoura piece, excite themselves fearfully,
clatter up and down through seven octaves of runs, with the pedal
constantly raised,--bang away, put the best piano out of tune in the
first twenty bars,--snap the strings, knock the hammers off their
bearings, perspire, stroke the hair out of their eyes, ogle the
audience, and make love to themselves. Suddenly they are seized with a
sentiment! They come to a _piano_ or _pianissimo_, and, no longer
content with one pedal, they take the soft pedal while the loud pedal is
still resounding. Oh, what languishing! what soft murmuring, and what a
sweet tinkling of bells! what tenderness of feeling! what a soft-pedal
sentiment! The ladies fall into tears, enraptured by the pale,
long-haired young artist.

I describe here the period of piano mania, which has just passed its
crisis; a period which it is necessary to have lived through, in order
to believe in the possibility of such follies. When, in the beginning of
this century, the piano attained such conspicuous excellence and
increased power, greater technical skill could not fail to be called