one in 1772. I had this one, which was known to have remained in the new
palace at Potsdam until the present time unaltered, examined, and, by a
drawing of the action, found it was identical with Cristofori's. Not,
however, being satisfied with one example, I resolved to go myself to
Potsdam; and, being furnished with permission from H.R.H. the Crown
Princess of Prussia, I was enabled in September, 1881, to set the
question at rest of how many grand pianofortes by Gottfried Silbermann
there were still in existence at Potsdam, and what they were like. At
Berlin there are none, but at Potsdam, in the music-rooms of Frederick
the Great, which are in the town palace, the new palace, and Sans
Souci--left, it is understood, from the time of Frederick's death
undisturbed--there are three of these Silbermann pianofortes. All three
are with unimportant differences having nothing to do with structure,
Cristofori instruments, wrest plank, sound-board, string-block, and
action; the harpsichord scale of stringing being still retained. The
work in them is undoubtedly good; the sound-boards have given in the
trebles, as is usual with old instruments, from the strain; but I should
say all three might be satisfactorily restored. Some other pianofortes
seem to have been made in North Germany about this time, as our own
poet Gray bought one in Hamburg in 1755, in the description of which we
notice the desire to combine a hammer action with the harpsichord which
so long exercised men's minds.

The Seven Years' War put an end to pianoforte making on the lines
Silbermann had adopted in Saxony. A fresh start had to be made a few
years later, and it took place contemporaneously in South Germany and
England. The results have been so important that the grand pianofortes
of the Augsburg Stein and the London Backers may be regarded,
practically, as reinventions of the instrument. The decade 1770-80 marks
the emancipation of the pianoforte from the harpsichord, of which before