Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

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SILBEEMANN SILOTI 453
nliat may be called the natural length, 16 feet
[The above dates are from Eiemann's Lexikon.'\
But the greatest of the Silbermann family
was Gottfried, who was born in the little
village of Kleinbobritzsch, near Frauenstein, in
1683 (according to Mooser on Jan. 14). He
was at first placed with a bookbinder, but soon
quitted him and went to Andreas at Strasburg.
Having got into trouble by the attempted
abduction of a nun, he had to quit that city in
1707 and go back to Frauenstein, where he built
his first organ (afterwards destroyed by fire, the
fate of several of his instruments). He appears
to have settled at Freiberg in 1709, and
remained there for some years. [He built the
cathedral organ there in 1714.] He built, in
all, forty-seven organs in Saxony. ^ He never
maiTied, and was overtaken by death August 4,
1753, while engaged upon his finest work, the
Dresden Court organ. Although receiving what
we should call very low prices for his organs,
by living a frugal life he became comparatively
rich, and his talent and exceptional force of
character enabled him to achieve an eminent
position. His clavichords were as celebrated as
his organs. Emanuel Bach had one of them for
nearly half a century, and the instrument, many
years after it was made, when heard under the
hands of that gifted and sympathetic player,
excited the admiration of Burney. It cannot be
doubted that he was the first German who made
a pianoforte. He was already settled in Dresden
in 1726, when Konig translated into German
Scipione Maffei's account of the invention of the
pianoforte at Florence by Cristofori. This fact
has been already mentioned [Pianoforte, vol.
iii. pp. 719-20,] and we now add some further
particulars gained by personal search and inspection
at Potsdam in 1881. We know from
Agricola, one of J. S. Bach's pupils, that in
1736 Gottfried Silbermann submitted two pianofortes
of his make to that great master. Bach
finding much fault with them, Gottfried was
annoyed, and for some time desisted from further
experiments in that direction. It is possible
that the intercourse between Dresden and
Northern Italy enabled him, either then or
later, to see a Florentine pianoforte. It is
certain that three grand pianofortes made by
him and acquired by Frederick the Great ^ for
Potsdam—where they still remain in the musicrooms
of the Stadtschloss, Sans Souci, and Neues
Palais,^ inhabited by that monarch—are, with
unimportant differences, repetitions of the
Cristofori pianofortes existing at Florence.
I ,-
Fire of 3 manuals, Frei^rg, Zittan, and Frauenstein tlie
Frauenklrclie and Xatholiache Hofkirche at Dresden ; twenty-four
of 3 manuals ; fifteen of 1 manual with pedals, and three of 1 manual
without pedals. (Mooserrp. 125.)
^ Probably in 1746. The peace of Dresden was signed by Frederick,
Christinas Day, 1745 ;hewouldhavetime after that event to inspect
SUbermann's pianofortes.
3 The Silbermann piano Burney mentions was that of the Neues
Palais. He must have heard the one at Sans Souci, although he does
not aay so. In all probability the piano .T. S. Bach played upon
specially, on the occasion of his visit to Frederick the Great, was
the one still in the Stadtschloss, the town palace of Potsdam.
Frederick is said to have acquired more than
three, but no others are now to be found. Bumey's
depreciation of the work of Germans in their
own country finds no support in the admirable
work of Gottfried Silbermann in these pianofortes.
If its durability needed other testimony,
we might refer to one of his pianofortes which
Zelter met with at Weimar in 1804, and praised
to Goethe ; and to another spoken of by Mooser
in 1857 as having been up to a then recent date
used at the meetings of the Freemasons' Lodge
at Freiberg. Gottfried Silbermann invented the
Cembal d' Amore, a kind of double clavichord.
[It is described in Mr. Hipkins's
History of the Piano, p. 66.] A. J. s.
SILCHER, Fkiedrich, weU-known composer
of Lieder, born June 27, 1789, at Schnaith,
near Schorndorf in Wiirtemberg, was taught,
music by his father, and by Auberlen, organist
at Fellbaoh near Stuttgart. He was edncatedl
for a schoolmaster, and his first post was at
Ludwigsburg, where he began to compose. In
1815 he took a conduetorship at Stuttgart, and
composed a cantata, which procured him, in
1817, the post of conductor to the University
of Tubingen. This he held till 1860, when he
retired, and died shortly after (August 26) at
Tiibingen. The honorary degree of Doctor had
been conferred upon him by the University in
1862. His most important publications are
' Sechs vierstimmige
'
Hymnen (Laupp), Dreistimmiges
'
wiirtemb. Choralbuch' (Ibid.), and
'
Swabian, Thuringian, and Franconian Volks-
'
lieder ' (12 parts), many of which are his own
compositions. Several of SUcher's melodies published
in his Sammlung '
deutseher Volkslieder,'
etc., have become true songs of the people, such
as 'Aennchen von Tharau,' 'Morgen muss ich
fort von hier,' Ich weiss nicht was ' soil es
bedeuten,' 'Zu Strassburg auf der Schauz,' etc.
The Lieder were published simultaneously for
one and two voices, with PF. and for four men's
voices. He edited a method for harmony and
composition in 1861. A biographical sketch of
Silcher by Xostlin appeared in 1877. F. G.
SILOTI, Alexander, born Oct. 10, 1863, on
his father's estate near Charkow in Southern
Russia, a remarkable pianist, and one of the most
eminent of Liszt's pupils. He studied at the
MoscowConservatoriumfroml875 tol881 under
Swerew, Nicolas Rubinstein, Tchaikovsky, and
Hubert, and from 1883 to 1886with Liszt. Since
1883, when he appeared at Leipzig at a Concert
of the Tonkiinstlerversammlung, he has been
regarded as one of the leading Russian pianists,
but he had already appeared with success in
Moscow in 1880. From that year till 1890 he
was Professor at the Moscow Conservatoiium ;
then he sojourned for several years out of his
own country in such places as Frankfort-on-the-
Main, Antwerp, and Leipzig, conducted the
Moscow Philharmonic concerts in 1901-2, and
since 1903 has figured largely as a conductor