Gottfried Silbermann relative Johann Andreas Silbermann
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.
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 Sébastien 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.
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.
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