User:Nick Michael

This user lacks maturity and may not be able to edit properly

Welcome!

Me

I am English born and bred and educated (Lambrook, Rugby), but have lived in French-speaking Switzerland since 1971.

Interests

I am interested in a myriad of subjects, from antique arms and armour, philology and motor bikes to genealogy [1] [2] and cooking (historical and modern), but the following often take precedence in my life:

• German renaissance prints (particularly by the brothers Beham and the Hopfer family);

• Renaissance music, particularly early keyboard music, and more particularly the English 'Virginalists': Byrd, Bull, Farnaby, Gibbons, Tomkins, Philips etc. Colin Tilney expresses my own feelings far better than can I: ... the keyboard music written in England from about 1580 to 1625 had no equal anywhere for gravity and brilliance, for learned ease or for sweet melancholy. It is simply one of the imaginative summits of Western art, a brief miracle, challenging in its technical demands and utterly satisfying in its hold on the ear and the mind.

• Early drinking glasses.