yes, I know about the price! And no - 'my' pianos had only three pedals. I forgot the model number - think they were around 7 1/2 feet. Here is one of them (sorry about my foot - lol)



And here is the other one:



Please tell me - what is a fourth pedal, what does it do? I have never seen that!

I find the 'late pedal' technique to be useful only in the stretto section after the return, and then only sometimes...and it is useful in the way you describe only if there is some reason not to sustain the bass note over the 2nd and 4th beats. In the beginning, I mostly use just damper pedal for each half note (which is how it's marked in Mikuli), but in the place where the melody has dissonance (C-B-C-Db-C), I use the sostenuto pedal to sustain the bass note. Most pianists either allow the dissonance to blur or drop the bass note to change pedal, and I probably would too (likely the former) if not for the other places in the piece that inspire the use of the sostenuto pedal. It seems like a lot of effort for such a simple effect, but I think that we are simply too unaccustomed to using the sostenuto pedal in general.

So I am guessing you are working on using the first pedal...I was never personally taught how to use that pedal. I mean we went over it a few times and my teacher sometimes told me to use it, but never taught me a specific way to use it. Thanks for the information though.. Will certainly try it

The middle pedal, actually. It's a little hard to get the hang of because we're used to the damper pedal. The sostenuto pedal only sustains those notes that are already depressed when the pedal is depressed. I only use the una corda once in the whole piece, not in the last two bars, but in the two before.