Should we use pedal at all playing Mozart - what does Mozart's piano look like?

Nothing irritates me more than seeing Bach or Mozart being played on a digital/electrical piano. There is plenty of research in recent years in academics, advocating the importance of making music on period instruments in order to achieve "authenticity". I have a lot of respect and admiration for music scholars for such efforts. Today however I would like to focus on the Mozart's piano technique and share with you the ideas of "pedalling".

The standard acoustic pianos nowadays that are manufactured for classical pianists are best suited for romantic and modern period works, with powerful mechanics and sound resonance. The keyboard instrument has afterall developed over a few hundred of years, along with the development of the western music styles.

Today as a pianist learning to play a compositions from classical or even Baroque period of time, it is important to know how to make the playing true to the composition, style wise. When playing Mozart, should the pedal be used at all? If it is oK to use the pedal, how much is proper?

In June this year I had the honor to play the Mozart Sonata K311 in D Major for a renowned master pianist while attending a piano festival in Hawaii. I was very confused when being advised to play Mozart with plenty of sustaining pedal. This differs from my understanding about using the sustaining pedal scarcely.

What on earth does Mozart's pianoforte look like? Does it have a pedal availabe and if it does what did it do? I found a very informative video that can greatly help:

This replica pianoforte mimicked the last pianoforte Mozart played and performed on. The original nowadays still exists and is being kept in Mozart's museum in Salzburg. Yes there are pedals available to create "special effect", which are similar to the sustaining pedal and una corda pedal we have today. It is not wrong to use pedal obviously. However the question is how much. Mozart did not mark pedal applications in his composition at all, which leaves us a lot of room making our own decisions.

We need to understand that this pianoforte was the newest piano at his time and for the most of his childhood the keyboards he played were harpischords. This tells us that the use of pedal is not something that is an extensive practice but for special effect/expression. Overall, Mozart's work follows Haydn's classical tradition - a style of classical "simplicity" and "balance" which requires very high degree of "clarity". The muddy or blurry sound that gets in the way of chord pregression or melodic lines caused by sustaining pedal should never be heard!

So what does Mozart sound like when played on the pianoforte of his time?

In 2012, Russian pianist Alexander Melnikov gave a beyond beautiful small concert on the original pianoforte Mozart owned and played on for almost a decade in Vienna after 1781. Imagine W A Mozart composed and performed his most loved piano concertos on this particular piano! Click on the link below to see the news/video clip. Must watch!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIHQSQI4MWk&t=5s

In short, I advise that playing Mozart with zero pedal as the main principle. However, use sustaining pedal scarcely and carefully to

- help connect notes when legato can not be achieved due to fingering difficulties

- help sustain sounds as needed, i.e. long trills or expressive melodic lines (example in the linked video by the author)

and be careful to change pedal as needed to maintain clarity at all times.

The clarity of sound should never be compromised or interrupted by muddy sound.