The instrument has two knee-activated levers under the keyboard, the equivalent of the foot-operated damper and “una corda” pedals on pianos today.

Raising the dampers allows the strings to resonate, while the “una corda” lever physically shifts the keyboard so that, of the double strings provided for each note, only single strings are struck.

Once again, Bannister’s technique was solid, but voicing and dynamics lacked subtlety, most evident in the recitative and lament sections of the third movement, where the soft effects using the una corda pedal were pedestrian.

Pater, Walter, remark on Romanticism, 161. pavane, 75; example from Ravel, 79. pedals of the pianoforte, the damper and the una corda, 192-195.

This statement is proved by directions in pianoforte literature as far back as Beethoven, in whose Sonatas we find the dynamic marks of f and ff coupled with the proscribed use of the una corda pedal.