Gottfried Silbermann (January 14, 1683-August 4, 1753) was an influential German constructor of keyboard instruments. He built harpsichords, clavichords, organs, and pianos; his modern reputation rests mainly on the latter two. January 14 is the 14th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Events June 6 - The Ashmolean Museum opens as the worlds first university museum. ... August 4 is the 216th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (217th in leap years), with 149 days remaining. ... 1753 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... Harpsichord in Flemish style; for more info, click the image. ... Large five-octave unfretted clavichord by Paul Maurici, after J.A. Haas The clavichord is a European stringed keyboard instrument known from the late Medieval, through the Renaissance, Baroque and Classical eras. ... Organ in Katharinenkirche, Frankfurt am Main, Germany Modern style pipe organ at the concert hall of Aletheia University in Matou, Taiwan The organ is a keyboard instrument with one or more manuals, and usually a pedalboard. ... A grand piano, with the lid up. ...

Life

Very little is known about Silbermann's youth. He was born in Kleinbobritzsch as the youngest son of the carpenter Michael Silbermann. They moved to the nearby town of Frauenstein in 1685, and it is possible that Gottfried also learnt carpentry there. He moved to Straßburg in 1702, where he learnt organ construction from his brother and came in touch with the French-Alsatian school of organ construction. He returned to Saxony as a master craftsman in 1710, and opened his own organ workshop in Freiberg one year later. His second project in Germany was the "Grand Organ" in the Freiberg Cathedral of St. Mary, finished in 1714. Silbermann died in Dresden, probably as the result of a tin-lead poisoning. Frauenstein is a town in the district of Freiberg, in the Free State of Saxony, Germany. ... City motto: – City proper (commune) Région Alsace Département Bas-Rhin (67) Mayor Fabienne Keller (UMP) (since 2001) Area 78. ... Freiberg, Obermarkt square Freiberg is a city in Saxony, Germany, capital of the district Freiberg. ... Freiberg Cathedral seen from the Untermarkt The Freiberg Cathedral or Cathedral of St Mary (German: ) is a Lutheran church in Freiberg, Saxony. ... For other uses, see Dresden (disambiguation). ...

Silbermann organ in Freiberg Cathedral

Image File history File linksMetadata DSCF0101. ... Image File history File linksMetadata DSCF0101. ... Freiberg Cathedral seen from the Untermarkt The Freiberg Cathedral or Cathedral of St Mary (German: ) is a Lutheran church in Freiberg, Saxony. ...

Silbermann's organs

The organs that Silbermannn and his brother Andreas Silbermann built are known as Silbermann organs. These instruments show a clear and distinctive style, both in architecture and in their music qualities. Silbermann never deviated from this style. Silbermann's ability to earn money with organ construction was remarkable, leading him to uncommon wealth. His economic operation and slow consolidation of his position eventually created a near monopoly. His apprentices had to pledge never to work in Central Germany.

Silbermann's non-negotiable style was not always appreciated. Johann Sebastian Bach, who preferred tuning systems (which are known now as well temperaments) that were more tonally flexible than the form of meantone temperament employed by Silbermann, when trying out an organ of Silbermann's, is known to have had a habit of pulling out loud stops and playing in Ab major (the least consonant key in meantone tuning) in order to prove his point. The 1748 Haussmann portrait of the composer Bach redirects here. ... Well temperament (also circular or circulating temperament) is a type of tempered tuning described in twentieth-century music theory. ... Meantone temperament is a system of musical tuning. ...

Silbermann created approximately 50 organs. 29 of these are still extant in Saxony, among others, the organ of the Hofkirche in Dresden. The Free State of Saxony (German: Freistaat Sachsen; Sorbian: Swobodny Stat Sakska) is a federal state of Germany. ... Hofkirche with Semperoper on the right Katholische Hofkirche is a Roman Catholic Church, located in the Altstadt in the heart of Dresden, in Germany. ...

Silbermann and the piano

Silbermann was also a central figure in the history of the piano. He transmitted to later builders the crucial ideas of Bartolomeo Cristofori (the inventor of the piano), ensuring their survival, and also invented the forerunner of the damper pedal. A grand piano, with the lid up. ... Bartolomeo Cristofori di Francesco (May 4, 1655 - January 27, 1731) was an Italian maker of musical instruments, generally regarded as the inventor of the piano. ... A sustain or sustaining pedal (also damper pedal or loud pedal) is the most commonly-used pedal in a modern piano. ...

Evidence from the Universal-Lexicon of Johann Heinrich Zedler indicates that Silbermann first built a piano in 1732, only a year after Cristofori's death. Silbermann may have found out about Cristofori's invention as follows. In 1709, Scipione Maffei did research on the newly invented piano, including an interview with Cristofori, and published his findings (with a ringing endorsement of the instrument) in a 1711 Italian journal article. In 1725, this article was translated into German by the Dresden court poet Johann Ulrich König, who was almost certainly a personal acquaintance of Silbermann. The Grosses vollständiges Universal-Lexicon aller Wissenschafften und Künste (Great Complete Encyclopaedia of all Sciences and Arts) is a 68-volume German encyclopedia published by Johann Heinrich Zedler between 1732 and 1754. ... Johann Heinrich Zedler (January 7, 1706 - March 21, 1751) was the publisher of a German encyclopedia, the Grosses Universal-Lexicon, in the 18th century. ... Scipione Maffei (b. ...

In his mature pianos, Silberman scrupulously copied the complex action found in Cristofori's last instruments, failing only to produce a correct copy of the back check. Silbermann also copied another ingenious Cristofori invention, the inverted wrest plank (see Bartolomeo Cristofori for the function of this device). In other respects (case construction, choice of wood species, string diameters and spacing, keyboard design), Silbermann relied on his own experience as a harpsichord builder. Bartolomeo Cristofori di Francesco (May 4, 1655 - January 27, 1731) was an Italian maker of musical instruments, generally regarded as the inventor of the piano. ...

During the 1740's, King Frederick the Great of Prussia became acquainted with Silbermann's pianos and bought a number of them (the early 19th century musicologist Johann Nikolaus Forkel claims this number was 15, though Stewart Pollens (reference below) believes this to be "certainly exaggerated"). Two of Silbermann's pianos are still located in Frederick's palaces in Potsdam today; they stand out for their elegant but plain and sober design amid the elaborate splendor of their surroundings. Frederick II of Prussia (German: ; January 24, 1712 – August 17, 1786) of Hohenzollern dynasty, ruled the Kingdom of Prussia from 1740 to 1786. ... Johann Nikolaus Forkel (February 22, 1749–March 20, 1818), was a German musician, musicologist and music theorist. ... Sanssouci, the symbol of the city Potsdam is the capital city of the federal state of Brandenburg in Germany. ...

The forerunner of the damper pedal

Silbermann invented a device by which the player could lift all of the dampers off the strings, permitting them to vibrate freely, either when struck or sympathetically when other notes were played. This is the function in later pianos of the damper pedal. Silbermann's device was different from the modern damper pedal in two respects. First, it was not actually controlled by a pedal, but rather was a hand stop, which required the player to cease playing on the keys for a moment in order to change the damper configuration. Thus, it was a device for imparting an unusual tonal color to whole passages, rather than a means of nuanced expression as the pedal is today. Second, Silbermann's device was bifurcated, permitting the dampers of the treble and bass sections to be lifted separately. This latter feature has recently been reintroduced to the piano, in the form of the fourth and fifth pedals of pianos made by the Borgato firm; see Innovations in the piano. This article is about resonance in physics. ... A sustain or sustaining pedal (also damper pedal or loud pedal) is the most commonly-used pedal in a modern piano. ... This article covers a number of innovations from recent times in the building of pianos. ...

There are at least two possible reasons for why Silbermann invented his damper-lifting mechanism. First, as an organ builder, he may have favored the idea of providing the player with a variety of tonal colors. The same impulse led German harpsichord builders of the time occasionally to include two-foot (two octaves higher than normal pitch) and sixteen-foot (one octave lower) choirs of strings in their instruments. An organ builder builds and maintains organs. ...

In addition, Silbermann had until 1727 built very large hammer dulcimers, called pantaleons, on behalf of Pantaleon Hebenstreit, who achieved a sensational career with virtuosic playing on this demanding instrument. The pantaleon, like any other hammered dulcimer, had no dampers and thus created a wash of sound. Silbermann later had a falling out with Hebenstreit and was blocked by a royal writ from building any further pantaleons. Stewart Pollens conjectures that in adding the damper-raising stop to the piano, Silberman may have been attempt to partially circumvent this restriction. Hammered dulcimers have two or sometimes three bridges, and are played by striking the strings with small hammers. The hammers are sometimes covered with leather to create a softer sound. ... Pantaleon (reigned c. ...

Silbermann and Bach

The 18th century musician Johann Friedrich Agricola tells a story about the relationship of Silbermann, Johann Sebastian Bach, and pianos. After Silbermann had completed two instruments, Agricola says, he showed them to Bach, who replied critically, saying that the tone was weak in the treble and the keys were hard to play. Silbermann was stung and angered by the criticism, but ultimately took it to heart and was able to improve his pianos (exactly how is not known, but it may have been the result of Silbermann's encountering Cristofori's most mature instruments). The improved Silbermann pianos met with Bach's "complete approval" ("völlige Gutheißung"), and indeed a preserved sales voucher dated May 8, 1749 shows that Bach acted as an intermediary for Silbermann in the sale of one of his pianos. Johann Friedrich Agricola (January 4, 1720 – December 2, 1774) was a German composer, organist, singer, teacher and writer on music. ... The 1748 Haussmann portrait of the composer Bach redirects here. ...

Silbermann's pupils

Silbermann's most important contribution to the piano may have been as the teacher of other builders. His nephew and pupil Johann Andreas Silbermann was the teacher of Johann Andreas Stein, who perfected the so-called "Viennese action", found in the pianos used by Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. Another group of Silbermann pupils were the so-called the "twelve apostles". These builders fled Germany during and after the time of chaos created by the Seven Years' War (1756-1763), migrating to England, where economic prosperity was creating new opportunities for instrument builders. The "twelve apostles" included Johannes Zumpe, whose invention of an affordable small square piano greatly popularized the instrument. They also included Americus Backers, one of the inventors of the "English action", which was a modified version of the Cristofori action. Johann Andreas Stein, (1728-1792), German maker of keyboard instruments and a friend of Mozart. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (baptized as Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart; January 27, 1756 – December 5, 1791) was a prolific and highly influential composer of Classical music. ... 1820 portrait by Karl Stieler Beethoven redirects here. ... For the 1563–1570 war, see Nordic Seven Years War. ... Johannes Zumpe (pronounced zumpy) was a maker of the first square pianos, a form of small rectangular piano with a compass of about five octaves. ... The square piano had horizontal strings arranged diagonally across the rectangular case above the hammers and with the keyboard set in the long side, it is variously attributed to Silbermann and Frederici and was improved by Petzold and Babcock. ...

Silbermann's role was crucial because, unlike other builders of his day, he refused to compromise on the quality of the action. Cristofori's action was complex and hard to build, leading many builders (e.g. Zumpe) to use instead a simplified, but clumsier action. Through Backers and others, the original conception of a complex but effective action survived. The English action was later modified and improved further by Sébastian Érard and Henri Herz to yield the action used in all grand pianos today. With the advent of industrial methods of manufacture, it ultimately became economical to include the complex modern action even in inexpensive pianos, thus vindicating Silbermann's original decision. Henri Herz (January 6, 1803–January 5, 1888) was an Austrian pianist and composer. ...

Silbermann's fame as a builder and teacher was such that for many decades he was regarded as the inventor of the piano; it was only with nineteenth century scholarship that this honor was restored to Cristofori.

References

• The organ portion of this article is based on a translation from the German Wikipedia. The original is located here.
• For the piano portion, the following two reference works were relied on:
  • Good, Edwin M. (1982). Giraffes, black dragons, and other pianos : a technological history from Cristofori to the modern concert grand. Stanford University Press. 
  • Pollens, Stewart (1995). The Early Pianoforte. Cambridge University Press. 

External links

• www.silbermann.org Gottfried-Silbermann-Society
• (German) Life of Silbermann
• (German) www.silbermannorgel-crostau.de Silbermann organ at Crostau