Janissary Pedals

Mavi Boncuk |
IMAGE SOURCE

Janissary Pedals 

During the late eighteenth century, Europeans developed a love for Turkish band music, and the Turkish music style was an outgrowth of this. According to Good, this was possibly started "when King Augustus the Strong of Poland received the gift of a Turkish military band at some time after 1710". "Janissary" or "janizary"" refers to the Turkish military band that used instruments including drums, cymbals, and bells, among other loud, cacophonous instruments. 

Owing to the desire of composers and players to imitate the sounds of the Turkish military marching bands, piano builders began including pedals on their pianos by which snare and bass drums, bells, cymbals, or the triangle could be played by the touch of a pedal while simultaneously playing the keyboard. 

The martial music of the Turkish Mehters was centuries old by the time it became popular in Europe in the mid to late 18th century, where it was incorporated into music by such luminaries as Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. The Janissary pedal created the sound of bells and drums, which the Viennese of the 18th and early 19th centuries felt appropriate for a Turkish-style sound. Mozart did, too. You can hear his version in the overture to his opera "Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail" (The Abduction From the Seraglio).It was a rhythmic and melodic style full of energy and bravura, and German harpsichords were occasionally built incorporating extra pedals that would ring bells, beat a padded drum stick against the underside of the soundboard, or activate a variety of cymbals and snares. 

Up to six pedals would control all these different sound effects. Alfred Dolge states, "The Janizary pedal, one of the best known of the early pedal devices, added all kinds of rattling noises to the normal piano performance. It could cause a drumstick to strike the underside of the soundboard, ring bells, shake a rattle, and even create the effect of a cymbal crash by hitting several bass strings with a strip of brass foil". Mozart's Rondo alla Turca, from Sonata K. 331, written in 1778, was sometimes played using these Janissary effects. Inevitably the late 18th C pianos from Vienna featured these “Janissary Music” pedals as well. Particularly in the period of 1810 to 1826, grand and square pianos made in Vienna were frequently built with these popular stops included. 

The massacre of the Janissary guard in 1826 and subsequent abolition of the Janissary Guard by Sultan Mahmud II in 1826 led to the swift decline in popularity of the Turkish music style and European builders ceased adding these features to pianos shortly afterward. In America, the popularity continued for another 10 years, but by 1840 this style of music had faded there as well. English tastes rarely warmed to the Turkish music style and pianos from the UK do not generally feature such extra pedals[*]. 

Source: The Piano-Forte By Rosamond E. M. Harding 

[*] (See below: Makers of the Piano: 1820-1860 By Martha Novak Clinkscale)

More: from Elifnurk’s Blog Janissary Pedals

"...These are built on a general style of the wrest plank in the front over the keys, the strings running diagonally from lower left to upper right, and in the upper right corner, the effects of a drum stick and bell are arranged. Depressing the outside rightmost pedal beats the drum, and quickly releasing the pedal rings the bell, giving a boom ring effect with each pedal pump, which can be easily synchronized to the music at the keyboard. The bell is usually a nicely turned brass bell with a high clear chime. The drum stick is a hardwood paddle hinged at the instrument case struts with a brass hinge, with a horsehair stuffed leather striker, and comes to rest on a similar horsehair stuffed pad. The striker for the bell is an iron rod perched on a thin spring steel arm which is further attached to a wooden paddle hinged in leather to the case, and the travel against the bell is limited to the spring action allowing the heavier iron rod to strike and rebound from the bell on quickly lowering the pedal. At no time does the rod rest on the bell, and the pictures above are of the action under repair. Variants of this basic scheme are to be found in all squares with Janissary pedals..." SOURCE

Demonstration of Janissary features on a piano by Thym (1815) at the National Music Museum