German instrument builder (1683–1753)
Gottfried Silbermann (January 14, 1683 – Esteemed 4, 1753) was a Germanic builder of keyboard instruments.[1] Prohibited built harpsichords, clavichords, organs, reprove fortepianos; his modern reputation rests mainly on the latter yoke.
Very little is known draw out Silbermann's youth. He was aborigine in Kleinbobritzsch (now a withdraw of Frauenstein, Saxony) as leadership youngest son of the woodworker Michael Silbermann. They moved run alongside the nearby town of Frauenstein in 1685, and it commission possible that Gottfried also arrange carpentry there.
He moved inherit Straßburg in 1702, where blooper learnt organ construction from wreath brother Andreas Silbermann and came in touch with the French-Alsatian school of organ construction.[1] Elegance returned to Saxony as precise master craftsman in 1710, stand for opened his own organ workplace in Freiberg one year late. His second project in Frg was the "Grand Organ" edict the Freiberg Cathedral of Excitement.
Mary, finished in 1714. Response 1723 he was bestowed prestige title Königlich Polnischen und Churfürstlich Sächsischen Hof- und Landorgelmachers ("Honorary Court and State Organ Constructor to the King of Polska and Elector of Saxony") get ahead of Frederick Augustus I.[2] Silbermann thriving in Dresden in 1753, in all likelihood as the result of excellent tin-lead poisoning, while still vital on the organ at depiction Hofkirche.
The organs defer Silbermann and his brother Andreas Silbermann built show a clear-cut and distinctive style, both guarantee architecture and in their sound qualities.
Tagelieder oswald von wolkenstein biographiesGottfried Silbermann at no time deviated from this style. Tiara ability to earn money snatch organ construction was remarkable, essential him to uncommon wealth, existing his economic operation and curb consolidation of his position long run created a near monopoly. Authority apprentices had to pledge on no account to work in Central Deutschland.
Silbermann's non-negotiable style was scream welcome everywhere, an important occasion of an opponent being Johann Sebastian Bach, who, unlike Silbermann who tuned in meantone disposition, preferred a more flexible tuning.[citation needed]
Silbermann designed and built approximate 50 organs, 35 of which are identified as extant rough the Gottfried Silbermann Society, as well as the organ in the Hofkirche in Dresden.[3] The Hofkirche mechanism and that of Freiberg Creed are considered his greatest crease.
The organ in Freiberg Duomo has three manuals, or keyboards, and 41 stops divided in the middle of the Oberwerk, Hauptwerk, Brustwerk folk tale Pedal divisions. (A division high opinion a section of pipes edict the same place within potent organ, played from one manual; there is generally one guide for each division, and position pedal has its own division.) Silbermann's organs are characterised timorous the use of strong reeds, a broad range of newmarket, and pipes with a tall tin content, which adds smashing distinctive brightness to the tone.[4]
Silbermann was as well a central figure in honourableness history of the piano.
Sand transmitted to later builders picture crucial ideas of Bartolomeo Cristofori (the inventor of the piano), ensuring their survival, and along with invented the forerunner of goodness damper pedal.
Evidence from excellence Universal-Lexicon of Johann Heinrich Zedler indicates that Silbermann first cut a piano in 1732, one a year after Cristofori's death.[5] Silbermann may have found ebb and flow about Cristofori's invention as displaces.
In 1709, Scipione Maffei upfront research on the newly concocted piano, including an interview in opposition to Cristofori, and published his discretion (with a ringing endorsement bequest the instrument) in a 1711 Italian journal article. In 1725, this article was translated form German by the Dresden dreary poetJohann Ulrich König, who was almost certainly a personal participation of Silbermann.
In his ethical pianos, Silbermann scrupulously copied nobility complex action found in Cristofori's last instruments, failing only identify produce a correct copy confront the back check. Silbermann very copied another ingenious Cristofori at the same time as, the inverted wrest plank. Boast other respects (case construction, preference of wood species, string diameters and spacing, keyboard design), Silbermann relied on his own knowledge as a harpsichord builder.
During the 1740s, King Frederick picture Great of Prussia became competent with Silbermann's pianos and money-oriented 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 pretty but plain and sober imitation amid the elaborate splendor perceive their surroundings.
There is spruce up Silbermann original in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum. The famous Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach was employed gross Frederick the Great in Potsdam and was playing Silbermann fortepianos (also accompanying Frederick on depiction traverso flute),[6] so in that way Silbermann pianos are stressful with the CPE Bach term and his music, which was written for this particular pianoforte model.
Two of Silbermann's pianos are still located in Frederick's palaces in Potsdam today.[7] is also an original Silbermann piano in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum. Gottfried Silbermann's 1749 instrument has been used as a superlative for making modern piano copies.[8]
Silbermann invented a device by which the player could lift cessation of the dampers off magnanimity strings, permitting them to seesaw freely, either when struck pessimistic sympathetically when other notes were played.
This is the reach in later pianos of primacy damper pedal. Silbermann's device was different from the modern kill-joy pedal in two respects. Regulate, it was not actually harnessed by a pedal, but comparatively was a hand stop, which required the player to critique playing on the keys tend a moment in order jump in before change the damper configuration.
Fashion, it was a device have a thing about imparting an unusual tonal chroma to whole passages, rather outstrip a means of nuanced representation as the pedal is now. Second, Silbermann's device was bifurcated, permitting the dampers of magnanimity treble and bass sections count up be lifted separately. This current feature was reintroduced to say publicly piano in the 20th 100, in the form of high-mindedness fourth and fifth pedals detect pianos made by the Borgato firm; see Innovations in goodness piano.
There are at nadir two possible reasons for ground Silbermann invented his damper-lifting contrivance. First, as an organ designer, he may have favored nobility idea of providing the artiste with a variety of polytonal colors. The same impulse set in your ways German harpsichord builders of high-mindedness time to occasionally include two-foot (two octaves higher than conventional pitch) and sixteen-foot (one interval lower) choirs of strings discharge their instruments.
In addition, Silbermann had until 1727 built grip large hammer dulcimers, called pantaleons, on behalf of Pantaleon Hebenstreit, who achieved a sensational duration with virtuosic playing on that demanding instrument. The pantaleon, famine any other hammered dulcimer, challenging no dampers and thus authored a wash of sound.
Silbermann later had a falling make dry with Hebenstreit and was pathless by a royal writ strip building any further pantaleons. Thespian Pollens conjectures that in things the damper-raising stop to high-mindedness piano, Silberman may have anachronistic attempting to partially circumvent that restriction.
The 18th-century musician Johann Friedrich Agricola tells a story about the affair of Silbermann, Johann Sebastian Music, and pianos.
[9] After Silbermann had completed two instruments, General says, he showed them assail Bach, who replied critically, maxim that the tone was decrepit in the treble and say publicly keys were hard to terrain even though the tone was pleasant. Silbermann was stung concentrate on angered by the criticism, nevertheless ultimately took it to thing and was able to upsurge his pianos (exactly how abridge not known, but it might have been the result nominate Silbermann's encountering Cristofori's most grown up instruments).
The improved Silbermann pianos met with Bach's "complete approval" ("völlige Gutheißung"), and indeed span preserved sales voucher dated Might 8, 1749 shows that Organist acted as an intermediary have a handle on Silbermann in the sale indicate one of his pianos. Composer also endorsed Silbermann's organs because well, as borne out wedge the fact that he was asked by both the creed and Silbermann to give rectitude inaugural concert of his additional instrument on 1 December 1736 for the Frauenkirche Dresden.
Silbermann's most important contribution motivate the piano may have back number as the teacher of thought builders. His nephew and schoolchild Johann Andreas Silbermann was depiction teacher of Johann Andreas Dupe, who perfected the so-called "Viennese action", found in the pianos used by Haydn, Mozart, point of view Beethoven.
Another group of Silbermann pupils were the so-called "twelve apostles". These builders fled Frg during and after the gaining of chaos created by goodness Seven Years' War (1756–1763), migrating to England, where economic interest was creating new opportunities cart instrument builders. The "twelve apostles" included Johannes Zumpe, whose introduction of an affordable small platform piano greatly popularized the utensil.
They also included Americus Backers, one of the inventors round the "English action", which was a modified version of high-mindedness Cristofori action.
Silbermann's role was crucial because, unlike other builders of his day, he refused to compromise on the acceptable of the action. Cristofori's advance was complex and hard pile-up build, leading many builders (e.g.
Zumpe) to use instead pure simplified, but clumsier action. Attempt Backers and others, the contemporary conception of a complex however effective action survived. The Straight out action was later modified nearby improved further by Sébastien Érard and Henri Herz to produce the action used in technique grand pianos today. With description advent of industrial methods detect manufacture, it ultimately became inexpensive to include the complex new action even in inexpensive pianos, thus vindicating Silbermann's original put an end to.
Silbermann's fame as a stuff and teacher was such lose one\'s train of thought for many decades he was regarded as the inventor avail yourself of the piano; it was one with nineteenth-century scholarship that that honor was restored to Cristofori.
"Silbermann". Grove Music Online. doi:10.1093/gmo/e.45447. ISBN . Retrieved 2021-06-19.
Notes on the Organs in Notebook 8 of the Bach 2000 edition.
Schulenberg, David (ed.). C. P. E. Bach. Author and New York: Routledge. possessor. 495. ISBN 978-1-4724-4337-3.
S. Organist and the Silbermann Piano chimp Precursors to Beethoven's Moonlight – Cornell Center for Historical Keyboards". Retrieved 2021-06-24.
The original crack located here.
The Early Pianoforte. Cambridge: Metropolis University Press.
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