Western Early Keyboard Association

"A Still, Small Voice": 17th- & 18th-Century German Music for Clavichord with Kevin Birch

Sunday, September 20, 2026 – 2:00pm - SOLD OUT

Milwaukie area, SE of Portland - RSVP for Address
Printable Program

Kevin Birch takes us on an intimate journey of musical discovery with 17th and 18th century keyboard works including the domestic keyboard music of Johann Sebastian Bach and his sons, Wilhelm Friedemann Bach and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, preceded by works of earlier composers that influenced J.S. Bach, Johann Jakob Froberger and Johann Krieger, and one of the later composers who had deep admiration for C.P.E. Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Review by Carol lei Breckenridge

The cozy Tranquility Room at RoseVilla in Southeast Portland provided an ideal setting for Kevin Birch’s clavichord program, titled “A Still, Small Voice: 17th- & 18th-Century German Music for Clavichord.” A receptive audience responded enthusiastically to the varied program that charted a course from Froberger, through three members of the Bach family, and finally to the Classical masters Haydn and Mozart.

Dr. Kevin Birch, Director of Music at St. John’s Catholic Church in Bangor, Maine, brought to Portland a fascinating program, revealing the multi-faceted nature of the clavichord in a period of musical transition. Birch expressed appreciation for the instrument he played, Paul Irvin’s 1995 Friederici Clavichord (modeled on the 1765 Friederici in Nuremberg), a large, five-octave unfretted clavichord with outstanding projection of tone in all its registers, capable of long sustain and dramatic contrasts of dynamics; it was loaned by Carol lei Breckenridge.

Birch’s approach to two compositions by Johann Jakob Froberger (1616-1667), Toccata II and Partita “Auf die Maӱerin,” both from 1649, brought out contrasting Affekts and nuanced expressiveness. The Toccata was played with improvisatory freedom and drama. In the Partita, various techniques and sonorities were explored, and dynamic nuance – inherent to the clavichord – produced flowing phrases. Birch played the closing Double an octave higher, indeed creating a sweet effect.

Johann Sebastian Bach’s (1685-1750) Prelude, Fugue and Allegro in E-Flat, BWV 998, revealed Birch’s affinity for the master’s organ style, with rich harmonies and supportive basses.

Next Birch shifted to J.S. Bach’s son, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-1788), and his masterful composition Abschied vom Silbermannschen Clavier (Farewell to my Silbermann Clavichord) of 1781. This famous work seems to have been composed on the occasion of Bach’s selling his beloved Silbermann clavichord, and includes many expressive elements typical of Empfindsamkeit (the “sensitive” style), such as extremes of registers and dynamics (from ff to pp), and phrases that fade into silence, conveying deeply felt sorrow.

Interestingly, the new owner of the Silbermann clavichord, Ewald Grotthuss (1751-1786), upon receiving the instrument, was inspired to write his own composition, Freude über den Empfang des Silbermannschen Claviers (Joy on Receiving the Silbermann Clavichord). As expected, this piece sparkles with lively figures; Birch brought out some lovely contrasting effects, as well.

1775 Silbermann in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum

Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (1710-1784), Sebastian Bach’s oldest son, whom many considered possibly Bach’s most talented child, in the 1760’s wrote a set of 12 polonaises, which bring to this triple metered dance a deeply felt personal expression; they were likely written on clavichord, requiring as they do the utmost in dynamic nuance and personal emotion. A highlight of the program, Birch’s expressive playing of the Polonaise No. 10 in F Minor, with its agonizing dissonances (beginning in the very first bar!) and dotted-rhythm yearning melodic lines over wide intervals establish W.F. Bach, along with his brother C.P.E. Bach, as strongly drawn to the personal “Sensitive” style, and therefore to the clavichord’s natural expressivity.

Birch’s choice of Franz Joseph Haydn’s (1732-1809) Sonata in F Major, H. XVI: 29 of 1774 (during Haydn’s “Sturm und Drang” period) carried the audience into the more exuberant world of Viennese Classicism, with sudden and extreme contrasts evident in the first Moderato movement, opening with dramatic drum-like bass notes, then constantly spinning off into contrasting flights of the imagination. The second movement’s expressive Adagio – another highlight of the program, as it was played so expressively – revealed a lyrical soprano melody accompanied at times with the newly popular Alberti bass. The final Tempo di Menuet movement continues the lyrical approach. Given these new stylistic characteristics, the clavichord or fortepiano have now clearly supplanted the older harpsichord.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s (1756-1791) Fantasie No. 3 in D Minor, K. 397 of around 1782, presents almost like an opera, having long contrasting sections. At Mozart’s death, the work was incomplete; Birch chose to close by reintroducing the mysterious broken chords from the opening of the piece.

By the 18th century, more large (five-octave) unfretted clavichords were being built, replacing earlier smaller fretted instruments, enabling greater freedom – such as in the use of chromaticism and legato -- within the new focus on cantabile style. Kevin Birch’s program revealed the enormity of stylistic change that occurred from the 17th- into the 18th-century, one that was amply supported by the magnificent unfretted clavichord.

About the Performer

Kevin Birch holds the Doctor of Musical Arts degree (Organ Pedagogy and Performance) from the University of Iowa, with previous studies at New England Conservatory in Boston and the Sweelinck Conservatorium in Amsterdam. His teachers include Yuko Hayashi, Delores Bruch, and Klaas Bolt. Since 1992, he has served as Director of Music at St. John’s Catholic Church in Bangor, Maine where, in addition to choir training and service playing, he directs the St. John’s Organ Society, an organization dedicated to the preservation and stewardship of E. & G. G. Hook’s Opus 288 built for St. John's Church in 1860. He has performed solo recitals in the US, Canada, Europe, and in South America, and for several national conventions of the Organ Historical Society. He is especially devoted to the many fine historic organs in Maine on which he enjoys frequent opportunities to study and perform. Kevin is also devoted to the art of the clavichord - an instrument long associated with the organ, especially in Germany and Scandinavia. Recent projects include solo clavichord recitals for the German Clavichord Society in Cologne, Germany, the Boston Clavichord Society, lectures/recitals on “The Clavichord and the Organ - Companions for Centuries” at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY, and at Oberlin Conservatory in Oberlin, OH.

Birch performs on a large clavichord by Paul Irvin after a 1765 instrument by Christian Gottfried Friederici, a member of the celebrated family of builders of the "Saxon-school" whose workshop was in Gera. Friederici instruments were highly sought after in their day and particularly admired by C.P.E. Bach and the Mozart family.

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