Residencies, concerts, and seminars

The Klaus Ahrend Harpsichord

In June 2023, I emailed Hendrik Ahrend in Leer, Germany. “I know this is remote possibility, but should you ever learn of one of your uncle’s harpsichords becoming available, would you let me know?” (The late Klaus Ahrend was the brother of Jürgen Ahrend, who built the Burns House organ, the first outside of Europe.)

Only hours later, I received a reply: “I’m amazed you asked me this question. Two days ago, I heard for the very first time ever one of Uncle Klaus’s rare instruments becoming available, when Timothy Roberts in London contacted me for advice about finding a new home for his harpsichord.”

Hendrik put me in touch with Timothy, a fine player who inherited the instrument from Martin Birnstingl, a British surgeon and husband of the architect Renate Prince. They had commissioned Klaus Ahrend to build this harpsichord for their famous Modernist flat in Hampstead.

When I suggested to Timothy we would likely never again have the chance to reunite two Ahrend instruments in the same space, he agreed.

With the generous help of contributors, I was able to acquire the harpsichord for the Burns House.

The instrument was commissioned by Martin Birnstingl, a surgeon at St Bartholemew's Hospital in London. It is in the Flemish tradition, and based on instruments by Johannes Daniel Dulcken (1706–1757). Its case, in poplar, remained unpainted at the special request of the customer, who lived in a minimalist modern apartment.

Dulcken's instruments represent the culmination of Flemish harpsichord-making, and typically are considerably larger than, for example, those built 150 to 100 years earlier by the famous Ruckers family. The reason for their great length – the spine of Ahrend instrument measures 8'6" – was (as in a modern grand piano) to allow the string lengths in the bass to increase in proportion, thus allowing thinner strings and a corresponding clarity of tone.

Ahrend had worked in the workshop of the acclaimed maker Martin Skowroneck, who had, in 1962, been commissioned by the famous harpsichordist Gustav Leonhardt, to build an instrument based on the work of Dulcken. Skowroneck did not aim for an exact copy, but studied original Dulckens in Washington and Vienna. The resulting masterpiece became famous through Leonhardt's recordings, especially of Bach's solo keyboard music and concertos, and was frequently copied. Skowroneck himself, however, made only three more "Dulckens".

The instrument took three years to design and build. The 1973 instrument by Ahrend has a special value not as a slavish copy of a Skowroneck, but rather as a top-quality instrument built in the same tradition by an associate and close friend who became a master in his own right. Now 50 years old, it is a collector's item but not a museum piece, having a superb refined sound and a light, responsive action. Its two manuals have a five-octave range from FF to f''', with the usual disposition 8'+8'+4', a sliding coupler and a buff stop on the upper manual.