The second movement is a theme and variations based on the German Minnesang " Mir ist leide . " Like the theme and variations of the pianissimo and to be played with the soft pedal, returns to and expands upon material from the movement's introduction.
32.
In two of the attested pianos, there is a forerunner of the modern soft pedal : the player can manually slide the entire action four millimeters to one side, so that the hammers strike just one of the two strings ( " una corda " ).
33.
The soft pedal of this time was more effective than today, since it was possible to use it to strike three, two or even just one string per note this is the origin of the name " una corda ", Italian for " one string ".
34.
The " "'soft pedal " "'( or "'una corda pedal "') is one of the standard grand piano this pedal shifts the whole action including the keyboard slightly to the right, so that hammers which normally strike all three of the strings for a note strike only two of them.
35.
On early pianos it was possible by use of the soft pedal to play only one, two, or all three strings, making the distinction between " una corda " ( " one string " ) and " due corde " ( " two strings " ) meaningful; but this is no longer the case.
36.
Member companies of Japan's AMEI developed the General MIDI Level 2 specification in 1999 . GM2 maintains backward compatibility with GM, but increases polyphony to 32 voices, standardizes several controller numbers such as for sostenuto and soft pedal ( " una corda " ), RPNs and Universal System Exclusive Messages, and incorporates the MIDI Tuning Standard.
