Berkshire Bach Society concludes its Harpsichord Festival with Peter Sykes on Saturday, October 10, in Stockbridge
Great Barrington, September 28, 2026–The Berkshire Bach Society concludes its 2026 Harpsichord Festival on Saturday, October 10, 3pm, at the Berkshire Waldorf HS (Old Town Hall) in Stockbridge, MA. Distinguished American harpsichordist PETER SYKES presents Bach at Home, an engaging program with music from the Bach family circle played on clavichord and harpsichord, two iconic instruments of the Baroque period. The event is an unusual opportunity to hear the crisp sound of the harpsichord next to the diminutive timbre of the clavichord, an instrument used as an aid to composition and for domestic music-making from the late Middle Ages through the end of the 18th century.
“We are so accustomed to hearing public music of the Baroque era,” said Terrill McDade, Executive Director of the Berkshire Bach Society, “that we forget that musicians such as Bach also had a family life in which music-making figured prominently in a world before musical recordings. What he played in the privacy of his own home is subject to debate, but if we take our cue from the music he copied into a notebook for his second wife, a professional singer, we see a combination of works by Bach—father and sons—as well as pieces that impressed him by other composers. For his recital Peter Sykes has chosen works from the 1725 Anna Magdalena Notebook and gives us an aural comparison of two 18th century keyboard instruments in a rare double header—a peek into the Bach family’s musical tastes, and a bit of keyboard organology to boot.”
The works played on clavichord include the iconic Prelude in C Major that is the first number of the Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I, three two-part inventions, and works by C.P.E. Bach and the Dresdner composer Christian Pezold originally attributed to J.S. Bach. The works played on harpsichord include the Aria from the ‘Goldberg’ Variations, the French Suite No. 4, and the Solo per il Cembalo by C.P.E. Bach.
Peter Sykes is a core faculty member and principal instructor of harpsichord in the Historical Performance Department of the Juilliard School, a lecturer at Boston University, teaching harpsichord and organ performance, and Music Director Emeritus at First Church in Cambridge, where he served for forty years. A founding board member and current president of the Boston Clavichord Society, a board member of Early Music America, and past president of the Westfield Center for Historical Keyboard Studies, he has performed with Berkshire Bach since 1999.
Join us on Saturday, October 10, 2026, at 3pm, at the Berkshire Waldorf HS in Stockbridge. Tickets $50 for nonmembers, $45 for BBS Members. $10 Card to Culture (with card). Children and Students under 25 always admitted FREE.
Visit www.berkshirebach.org/events for more information and tickets.
The Berkshire Bach Society is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization under the U.S. tax code and the oldest, continuously operating, membership-based music organization in the Berkshires. Donations to The Society are deductible to the full extent of the law.