Tan Yee Ping:

>No matter what, I've always ended up with Bach.  And it's a most wondrous
>thing.  Bach is said to be the 'beginning & end' - a (life) cycle, not a
>blind alley

This is a clearer variation of my initial lament.  I called it my mistake
because sticking to Bach too soon has shut all doors for anything else
and it seems too late to listen to Liszt.  I'd like to stress that I'm
referring to piano music and not to orchestral works.  This is another
world and I was speaking exlusively about piano music.  So my ears were
impaired:  they got used to polyphony, mainly, and to music that I don't
consider classical rather than celestial (eg the ending zigzags of the 2nd
prelude from WTCI).

Don Satz:

>Let's move on to pleasant topics.  Juozas, what Bach recordings are you
>enjoying these days?

During the last week I've whined along the 8th fugue from WTCI for some ten
times (and the very end of the piece is still giving me the shivers, just
like the whole 12th fugue).  Now I'm mostly not annoyed by Gould's humming
because my own humming is louder...  I found myself whistling the middle
part of the 6th partita for the whole afternoon once.  Thank god my father
is a musician because otherwise I would be surely considered as adolescent
madman and sent on vacation.  Generally, I discover only one Bach's piece
a day.  Yesterday, however, I discovered the 22th prelude from WTCI and the
5th English suite.  Anyway, I hope I won't run out from this mental fuel
for a long time.  Mahler and Brahms will be an excelent supplement.  In the
end, there are not that many superb composers.  So it's a pity I don't seem
to discover the naughty Wolfgang someday.

Juozas Rimas
Lithuania