Readers will remember Sarah MacDonald’s personal account of learning the Goldberg Variations BWV 988 on the piano as a lockdown project (December 2022 edition). As Sarah recounts, she subsequently recorded these for Regent. We’re pleased to publish here, as an alternative approach, Dr Stephen Farr’s account of his lockdown project, which was to learn the Goldbergs on a (two-manual) harpsichord. He has played this in public a number of times now and here provides some fascinating insight not least into the question of tempi and the inter- relation between movements.

The concert organist Dr Eleni Keventsidou offers a stimulating account of the musical and personal legacy of the great Italian virtuoso Fernando Germani (1906- 98), while organist and musicologist Dr Katharine Pardee considers the fascinating question of Bach’s legacy and reputation in nineteenth-century England. A significant figure in this, of course, is Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1809-47), who is also the major figure in Martin Holmes’s account of the organ music collections in Oxford’s Bodleian Library.

Our ‘In conversation’ piece this issue is with the English-born US-based organist and scholar Professor Annette Richards who shares some of her insights not least into eighteenth-century music and the Gothic. A very different kind of Gothic is present in the article convened by David Pipe,,our own Deputy Editor, about how,the organ (the Willis in Huddersfield,Town Hall, in this case) can play a surprisingly powerful role in music by two doom metal bands. Don’t say we are not bringing a wide perspective on the organ in this issue!

These are only a few of the pieces in this newly extended edition as we try to increase the amount of text for readers. We end by wishing Dr Philip Moore, formerly of Guildford Cathedral and York Minster and a world-famous composer, a belated happy 80th birthday (30 September). He genially fills our final pages with reflections on his life-long relationship with the organ.