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Discussions - Part 24: Year 2024-2025

Continue from Part 23: 2022-2023

Introducing myself

Paul Beard wrote (August 24, 2025):
Hello fellow Bach enthusiasts,

I am Paul, 56 and from Bournemouth, U.K.

I first became interested in classical music when I was about eight years old and although I don’t remember how I got hooked, I do remember staying with my Nan in Haslemere, home of the Dolmetsch family and factory, and listening to her records and enjoying that very much. As I went through my teenage years, I also became a fan of rock music but the love of ‘proper’ music never left me. I have listened to classic music radio stations and read their magazines over the years which has helped my understanding and knowledge no end.

Bach has always been at the forefront of my interest and I spend a lot of time listening to his works; I am trying to find as much of his music on CD as I can. In recent months this has become more intense and I have started to amass books about him as well as his contemporaries; in fact early music especially Baroque has become somewhat of a passion, appropriately. I am very lucky to live within a mile of Bournemouth Library and it’s exemplary music section, where much of my research is carried out and part of this concerns a book I want to write about harpsichord makers as this is my favourite instrument. In the library there is also a superb bust of Johann Sebastian and I always say hello to him when I visit.

I learnt to play recorder at school but haven’t played an instrument since. I am just starting to learn the recorder again and hopefully if I can get my music reading skills to a half decent level, I would like to purchase a harpsichord to learn and enjoy.

Top of my list of places to visit is Leipzig and the Bach festival there, with a trip to Eisenach of course too. Maybe next year we might go.

Thanks for reading. Vielen danke fürs lesen.

Introducing Myself

Stephen Smith wrote (September 15, 2025):
Greetings from Vancouver, Canada!

I really shouldn't be joining this group. I'll just end up regretting that I don't have time to peruse all the information, commentary, links, messages, etc. But here I am anyway!

I'm a pianist and (rusty) organist, a composer, arranger, teacher, and conductor, and a writer and lecturer on music. If I could, I'd spend all my time just listening to, playing, and studying Bach -- well, maybe 90 percent of my time: the remaining 10% would be for Brahms, Schumann, Rachmaninoff, Prokofieff, Messaien, Torke, Tallis, Dufay, Brumel, Phinot...

One of the ways I pay the rent (in outrageously expensive Vancouver) is by accompanying some of the city's many fine choirs -- including (since 2010) the Vancouver Bach Choir, which is currently rehearsing for a December performance of the complete Christmas Oratorio -- lucky me!

During the pandemic, when the Bach Choir should have been rehearsing the B Minor Mass, I instead embarked on writing a movement-by-movement analysis of the work, which I called Structure and Symbolism in Bach's B Minor Mass. (It is currently posted, in sections, on my MusicaNeo blog.) Happily, one of the first live performances I was involved in when the pandemic finally subsided was the VBC's Easter 2022 performance of the B Minor Mass, in which I had the pleasure of playing continuo.

Well, that's a little about me... Oh, and the profile pic? That's a mash-up of my face (a few years ago) and Johann Sebastian's! SInce my initials are SJS, I call the mash-up "SJS Bach"!

Paul Farseth wrote (September 17, 2025):
[To Stephen Smith] Welcome aboard, Stephen!

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