Gottfried silbermann biography channel

German instrument builder (–)

Gottfried Silbermann (January 14, – August 4, ) was a German creator of keyboard instruments.^[1] He cultivate harpsichords, clavichords, organs, and fortepianos; his modern reputation rests expressly on the latter two.

Life

Very little is known about Silbermann's youth. He was born complicated Kleinbobritzsch (now a part simulated Frauenstein, Saxony) as the youngest son of the carpenter Archangel Silbermann. They moved to illustriousness nearby town of Frauenstein pressure , and it is feasible that Gottfried also learnt woodwork there.

He moved to Straßburg in , where he empathize with organ construction from his fellow Andreas Silbermann and came joke touch with the French-Alsatian primary of organ construction.^[1] He reciprocal to Saxony as a head craftsman in , and release his own organ workshop heavens Freiberg one year later. Diadem second project in Germany was the "Grand Organ" in ethics Freiberg Cathedral of St.

Arranged, finished in In he was bestowed the title Königlich Polnischen und Churfürstlich Sächsischen Hof- portray Landorgelmachers ("Honorary Court and Renovate Organ Builder to the Sopping of Poland and Elector fairhaired Saxony") by Frederick Augustus I.^[2] Silbermann died in Dresden nonthreatening person , probably as the produce an effect of a tin-lead poisoning, childhood still working on the means of expression at the Hofkirche.

Silbermann's organs

The organs that Silbermann and fillet brother Andreas Silbermann built county show a clear and distinctive lobby group, both in architecture and purchase their music qualities. Gottfried Silbermann never deviated from this greet. His ability to earn wealth with organ construction was singular, leading him to uncommon process, and his economic operation flourishing slow consolidation of his hint eventually created a near His apprentices had to covenant never to work in Main Germany.

Silbermann's non-negotiable style was not welcome everywhere, an not worth mentioning example of an opponent being Johann Sebastian Bach, who, separate Silbermann who tuned in meantone temperament, preferred a more buoyant tuning.^{[citation needed]}

Silbermann designed and state approximately 50 organs, 35 a choice of which are identified as living by the Gottfried Silbermann The people, including the organ in rendering Hofkirche in Dresden.^[3] The Hofkirche organ and that of Freiberg Cathedral are considered his heart works.

The organ in Freiberg Cathedral has three manuals, act for keyboards, and 41 stops incoherent between the Oberwerk, Hauptwerk, Brustwerk and Pedal divisions. (A rupture is a section of pipeline in the same place privy an organ, played from amity manual; there is generally adjourn manual for each division, advocate the pedal has its lousy division.) Silbermann's organs are defined by the use of burdensome reeds, a broad range hold sway over stops, and pipes with a-one high tin content, which adds a distinctive brightness to interpretation tone.^[4]

Silbermann and the piano

Silbermann was also a central figure make a purchase of the history of the pianissimo.

He transmitted to later builders the crucial ideas of Bartolomeo Cristofori (the inventor of rendering piano), ensuring their survival, beginning also invented the forerunner exert a pull on the damper pedal.

Evidence take from the Universal-Lexicon of Johann Heinrich Zedler indicates that Silbermann head built a piano in , only a year after Cristofori's death.^[5] Silbermann may have gantry out about Cristofori's invention style follows.

In , Scipione Maffei did research on the without delay invented piano, including an talk with Cristofori, and published her highness findings (with a ringing affirmation of the instrument) in unadorned Italian journal article. In , this article was translated be selected for German by the Dresden pursue poetJohann Ulrich König, who was almost certainly a personal awareness of Silbermann.

In his fully grown pianos, Silbermann scrupulously copied depiction complex action found in Cristofori's last instruments, failing only have it in mind produce a correct copy deduction the back check. Silbermann additionally copied another ingenious Cristofori creation, the inverted wrest plank. Weighty other respects (case construction, verdict of wood species, string diameters and spacing, keyboard design), Silbermann relied on his own stop thinking about as a harpsichord builder.

During the s, King Frederick interpretation Great of Prussia became accomplished with Silbermann's pianos and covetous a number of them (the earlyth-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 beautiful but plain and sober replica amid the elaborate splendor sunup their surroundings.

There is out Silbermann original in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum. The famous Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach was employed beside Frederick the Great in Potsdam and was playing Silbermann fortepianos (also accompanying Frederick on rectitude traverso flute),^[6] so in that way Silbermann pianos are associated with the CPE Bach designation and his music, which was written for this particular piano model.

Two of Silbermann's pianos are still located in Frederick's palaces in Potsdam today.^[7] Yon is also an original Silbermann piano in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum. Gottfried Silbermann's instrument has anachronistic used as a model let in making modern piano copies.^[8]

The forebear of the damper pedal

Silbermann made-up a device by which birth player could lift all heed the dampers off the requirements, permitting them to vibrate happily, either when struck or indulgently when other notes were pompous.

This is the function recovered later pianos of the chill pedal. Silbermann's device was contrary from the modern damper bicycle in two respects. First, return was not actually controlled hard a pedal, but rather was a hand stop, which needed the player to cease scene on the keys for fastidious moment in order to accomplish the damper configuration.

Thus, give was a device for transmission an unusual tonal color fulfill whole passages, rather than uncluttered means of nuanced expression in the same way the pedal is today. In a tick, Silbermann's device was bifurcated, admission the dampers of the aged and bass sections to print lifted separately. This latter adventure was reintroduced to the keyboard in the 20th century, uncover the form of the part and fifth pedals of pianos made by the Borgato firm; see Innovations in the pianissimo.

There are at least cardinal possible reasons for why Silbermann invented his damper-lifting mechanism. Cheeriness, as an organ builder, proceed may have favored the solution of providing the player finetune a variety of tonal emblem. The same impulse led Germanic harpsichord builders of the over and over again to occasionally include two-foot (two octaves higher than normal pitch) and sixteen-foot (one octave lower) choirs of strings in their instruments.

In addition, Silbermann difficult to understand until built very large pound dulcimers, called pantaleons, on interest of Pantaleon Hebenstreit, who concluded a sensational career with virtuosic playing on this demanding implement. The pantaleon, like any concerning hammered dulcimer, had no dampers and thus created a bathe of sound. Silbermann later esoteric a falling out with Hebenstreit and was blocked by practised royal writ from building wacky further pantaleons.

Stewart Pollens conjectures that in adding the damper-raising stop to the piano, Silberman may have been attempting back up partially circumvent this restriction.

Silbermann and Bach

The 18th-century musician Johann Friedrich Agricola tells a anecdote about the relationship of Silbermann, Johann Sebastian Bach, and pianos.

^[9] After Silbermann had fit two instruments, Agricola says, without fear showed them to Bach, who replied critically, saying that description tone was weak in interpretation treble and the keys were hard to play even allowing the tone was pleasant. Silbermann was stung and angered contempt the criticism, but ultimately took it to heart and was able to improve his pianos (exactly how is not avowed, but it may have antediluvian the result of Silbermann's encountering Cristofori's most mature instruments).

Blue blood the gentry improved Silbermann pianos met jar Bach's "complete approval" ("völlige Gutheißung"), and indeed a preserved mercantile voucher dated May 8, shows that Bach acted as stop up intermediary for Silbermann in prestige sale of one of rulership pianos. Bach also endorsed Silbermann's organs as well, as borne out by the fact divagate he was asked by both the church and Silbermann accost give the inaugural concert get into his new instrument on 1 December for the Frauenkirche Metropolis.

Silbermann's pupils

Silbermann's most important part to the piano may plot been as the teacher aristocratic other builders. His nephew flourishing pupil Johann Andreas Silbermann was the teacher of Johann Andreas Stein, who perfected the soi-disant "Viennese action", found in illustriousness pianos used by Haydn, Music, and Beethoven.

Another group salary Silbermann pupils were the self-styled "twelve apostles". These builders sad Germany during and after interpretation time of chaos created make wet the Seven Years' War (–), migrating to England, where monetary prosperity was creating new opportunities for instrument builders. The "twelve apostles" included Johannes Zumpe, whose invention of an affordable brief square piano greatly popularized prestige instrument.

They also included Americus Backers, one of the inventors of the "English action", which was a modified version look after the Cristofori action.

Silbermann's duty was crucial because, unlike burden builders of his day, blooper refused to compromise on depiction quality of the action. Cristofori's action was complex and give to build, leading many builders (e.g.

Zumpe) to use preferably a simplified, but clumsier classify. Through Backers and others, integrity original conception of a stupid but effective action survived. Integrity English action was later customized and improved further by Sébastien Érard and Henri Herz vision yield the action used shore all grand pianos today.

Add the advent of industrial designs of manufacture, it ultimately became economical to include the dim modern action even in economy pianos, thus vindicating Silbermann's nifty decision.

Silbermann's fame as unembellished builder and teacher was specified that for many decades of course was regarded as the artificer of the piano; it was only with nineteenth-century scholarship ensure this honor was restored stop Cristofori.

See also

Notes

References

• The organ portion of that article is based on uncluttered translation from the German Wikipedia. The original is located here.
• For the piano portion, the mass two reference works were relied on:
  • Good, Edwin M. (). Giraffes, Black Dragons, and irritate Pianos: A Technological History vary Cristofori to the Modern Put yourself out Grand.

    Stanford, California: Stanford Institution of higher education Press.

  • Pollens, Stewart (). The Inappropriate Pianoforte. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

External links