Pedale a discrezione

As Printed on a Score

Printed beneath a piano passage, usually at its start, to say that no pedal marks follow and the player should pedal by ear; it lasts until a specific pedal indication appears.

How Composers Use It

A deliberate hand-over: you trust the player’s ear and the instrument instead of fixing the pedalling. It suits passages whose harmony changes too often to mark sensibly, and it is especially clear right after a senza pedale section, where silence might be read as a continuing ban. Liszt uses it exactly that way in his Paganini variations.

Example

Liszt, Grandes études de Paganini, No. 6 (Theme and Variations in A minor), piano, m. 176: “Pedale a discrezione.” at “Var. 10”, sixteen bars after the “Senza pedale.” of Var. 9.

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