DePaul University’s School of Music will host its seventh annual Charles E. McGuckin Harpsichord Recital Concert on April 21 at 8 p.m. in the DePaul Concert Hall, 800 West Belden Ave. Chicago. Both the concert and a reception that follows immediately are free and open to the public.

Two leading interpreters of harpsichord literature will perform on this program—John Austin Clark and DePaul faculty member, Roger Goodman. Both artists will first demonstrate the virtuosity and versatility of the harpsichord as a solo instrument. Clark will perform works by three early German composers—Johann Fischer, Johann Kuhnau, and Johann Froberger, all of whom are recognized as influences on J.S. Bach’s own ground-breaking keyboard compositions. A fourth work performed by Clark, titled “The Breaker’s Pound,” was penned in 1985 by Dan Locklair, currently composer-in-residence at Wake Forest College. Goodman will offer music by Heinrich Schütz, the preeminent early Baroque master considered crucial to Bach’s development as a composer.

The program also will feature the harpsichord in chamber and orchestral music, as well as in opera. Goodman, at the keyboard, will partner with his DePaul colleague, soprano Amy Conn, in three vocal works by Handel, including the aria, “Piangeró, la sorte lingua” from one of his finest heroic operas “Giulio Cesare.”

To conclude the program, Roger Goodman leads the DePaul Baroque Ensemble in Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 5. With this work, Bach was on the verge of inventing a new form—the keyboard concerto—that would dominate the output of almost every composer from Mozart through the 19th century. In this composition, the harpsichord is elevated from a supporting role to a starring role for the first time in all of Bach’s music.

Because the harpsichord is infrequently played in modern times, this event affords concertgoers a rare opportunity to experience this keyboard instrument which was widely used between the 16th and 18th centuries. The harpsichord differs from its descendent, the piano, because its strings are plucked instead of struck by the key mechanism.

Marie McGuckin of Palos Heights, Ill., established this innovative recital series in 2000 with the donation to DePaul’s School of Music of a double manual Martin harpsichord in honor of her late husband, Charles. Both husband and wife have close ties to DePaul; Charles was a 1956 graduate of the University’s School of Education, and a former Chicago public school principal; Marie is a 1964 alumna of the music school.