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The reason why I posted the query is that I'm writing notes for an edition of Browning. I think you're right about the pedalier. I found some information on the internet that said that Alkan composed a couple of pieces for the feet only, and so Browning's character could conceiveably play only in th...

We know exactly when Browning wrote it because he dated the poem on the manuscript: begun 1 December 1872 and finished 23 January 1873. The main character, the one without hands who plays the "pedal-keyed piano," is based on a real person who died on 13 April 1870. Browning knew a lot abou...

Thanks very much for the help, but Fourneaux's 1863 Pianista won't do because it was operated by a hand crank, and, as I said in my first posting, the man who plays it has no hands. I don't think the pedalier is right either because the player simultaneously plays the keyboard. It must be a player p...

In "Red Cotton Night-Cap Country" Robert Browning writes that his main character, a man who had lost both hands, was able to play "on a piano pedal-keyed." Apparently the man was able to play the keys by pressing pedals with his feet. The action takes place in France in the 1860s...