legenday集团因“十二门徒”而闻名。这些钢琴师有的来自德国，有的来自荷兰，据说他们都是在七年战争时期逃亡到英国的。他们建立了健全的钢琴制造制度，创造了前瞻性的设计理念，这些都促成了布罗德伍德的辉煌。（原文：
the legenday group known as the "Twelve Apostles", piano makers, many were German born and some were Dutch they were said to have fled to England during the seven year war. They established successful manufactories and produced forward looking designed and technologies which ultimaltely was incorporated into Broadwoods success. ）

The twelve apolstels :

1 Americus Bakers
2 Frederick Beck
3 Adam Beyer
4 Gabriel Buntebart
5 Christopher Ganer
6 George Garcka
7 John Geib
8 Meincke Meyer (partner of Zumpe)
9 Johannes Pohlmann
10 Georg D Schoene (successor of Johannes Zumpe)
11 Sievers (partner of Buntebart)
12 Johannes Zumpe

 

Americus Backers:

(died 1778), sometimes described as the father of the English grand pianoforte style, brought the hammer striking action for keyboard instruments from his master Gottfried Silbermann’s workshop in Freiburg to England in the mid-18th century. Unlike the eleven other ex-apprentices of Silbermann who followed him to England and built square pianos with Silbermann’s action, he developed Silbermann’s crude action (copied from a published sketch of the original Cristofori into a reliable, powerful and responsive form that he built into a grand harpsichord case and added two tonal effects – una corda and damper lift – activated by pedals built into the dedicated trestle stand, again his original innovation. This new instrument altered the landscape of English music, causing composers and musicians to consign the plucked string harpsichord and its music to history. It is upon Americus’s design that the modern grand pianoforte we know today is based.

Johannes Zumpe

Johannes (Johann Christoph) Zumpe (pronounced zumpy; born, 14 June 1726, Fürth, Free Imperial City of Nuremberg, modern Germany, buried 05 Dec 1790, London, UK) was a leading maker of early English square pianos, a form of rectangular piano with a compass of about five octaves. The pianos sounded like mellow harpsichords, and had a damper stop in the left cheek of the case.