Keyboard instruments with pedal-board

However unusual or even bizzarre it may seem, the idea of a piano endowed with a pedalboard similar to that of an organ actually has a long history behind it. Its antecedents are the clavichord and the harpsichord with single or double keyboard, which also often had a pedalboard attached. The first citation of a clavichord with pedalboard appeared around 1460 in the section dedicated to musical instruments of the encyclopedic treatise written by the scholar Paulus Paulirinus (1413-1471). It was thus established as an instrument useful for "practice" reasons, in exercises useful for coordinating the hands and feet, that organists could also use if they wished to avoid having to activate the organs' bellows or the rigorous cold of the churches. 

Johann Sebastian Bach owned a clavichord with two keyboards and pedalboard for which he composed the Trio Sonata BWV 525-530, the Passacaglia in C minor BWV 582 and other works.


Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart owned a fortepiano with independent pedals, built expressly for him in 1785 by Anton Walter. In the autographed manuscript of the Concerto in D minor K 466, composed the same year, the magnitude of the bass notes is evident. Furthermore, in letters to his father, Mozart mentions use of this piano with pedalboard in public improvisations.

The instrument Robert Schumann refers to as a pedalflügel (piano with pedalboard) first entered his home in Dresden in 1845. Schumann's enthusiasm for this piano endowed with a pedalboard was so great that it inspired him to compose three works: Studies for Pedalflügel Op. 56, Skizzen for Pedalflügel Op.58 and Six Fugues on the name of "Bach" Op.60; he was also able to convince F. Mendelssohn Bartholdy to inaugurate a class especially for the pedalflügel in the Conservatorium of Leipzig. 

There are various systems with which a pedalboard was attached to the piano: the most common was that of a pedalboard fastened under the piano that activated its mechanics-keyboard; another System, though less frequent, was that of placing two independent pianos (each with its separate mechanics and strings) one above the other, as with the instrument Mozart required of Anton Walter. With time the request for this polyvalent instrument declined, so much so that works written specifically, such as those of Schumann, were performed more and more often on the organ, or transcribed into versions for four-hands or two pianos.

Inspired by the compositions mentioned above, at the end of this last century the piano-maker Luigi Borgato realized a new instrument, the "DOPPIO BORGATO": a double piano of extensive form, joining a concert-grand together with a second piano activated by a pedalboard comprised of 37 pedals, thus augmenting the expressive qualities of its 18th century predecessors. 


The "DOPPIO BORGATO" opens up a new page for the musical world, this particular instrument offering new possibilities to both composers and interpreters.