PEDAL POINT

also called pedal tone in music, a sustained note, ordinarily in the bass, over which changing harmonies are played. The name may derive from the low tones sustained by organ pedals, although a pedal point can occur in the middle voices or the soprano. Pedal points are usually important notes in a key (normally the tonic and dominant; in the key of C, the notes C and G). Fugue No. 2 in J.S. Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I, ends with a pedal point on the tonic. In the sonata-allegro form used in symphonies and sonatas, pedal points on the dominant often appear in the retransition (the passage preceding the recapitulation of the principal themes in the tonic key). This persistent dominant tone leads the listener to anticipate the eventual return to the tonic. An example occurs in the first movement of Mozart's Symphony No. 41 in C Major (Jupiter). Pedal points are special instances of the use of drone (q.v.) and are occasionally called bourdons. Franois Couperin and Jean-Philippe Rameau utilized them in a number of pieces for the harpsichord.