Glenn Miller wrote:

>[log in to unmask] writes:
>
>>...  I do know that I feel I'm receiving erotic messages from Bach in,
>>say, the Musical Offering.
>
>Well, ain't that kinda funny.  Whenever I listen the Bach's Double Violin
>Concerto all kind of perverted thoughts run through my head.  Not that Mr.
>Bach was thinking the same thoughts as I was of course.  Yet, hearing those
>2 violins rubbing into each other (what's that musical term)? leaves me
>wondering.  Could be that overly romantic interpretation that I'm hearing?
>Then comes that slow movement--Is that foreplay?

Glenn, I know, was being facetious in his reply - and knowing Don, I
think there had to have been a little smile on his face when he talked of
eroticism in the "Musical Offering." But these remarks triggered me to ask
myself: what is eroticism in music? What makes the opening of Tristan seem
to seethe with sexual overtones? Why does the six-part Ricercare in the
Musical Offering prickle my senses in the way Don suggested? Why do I find
the Love Theme from Turangalia so totally and utterly erotic?

Eroticism has nothing to do with emotions; it is an intellectual response
to a trigger.  It is like - for me - watching an attractive woman light a
cigarette (I don't smoke myself, in case you're wondering) and allowing
the smoke to drift up in front of her.  That is erotic.  Pornography, on
the other hand, isn't.  Which could explain why music can induce erotic
feelings: because it appeals to the emotions, not to the senses.

Bach for me is one of the composers who touches on eroticism far more
frequently than one would expect - although we shouldn't forget how many
children he fathered and that for his second marriage he chose a (much)
younger woman.  This has nothing to do with it: the eroticism is in the
music.  Perhaps it is the use of certain intervals - a falling sixth always
does it for me - or of extreme chromaticism (listen to the Ricercare).  Or
could it be the way he suspends an opening note over shifting harmonies -
the slow movement of the Double concerto or of the Italian Concerto?

I believe that Wagner achieved the first orgasm in music with his Liebestod
(and I know what they say about Rosenkavalier); Bach may have introduced
intellectual eroticism into music.  Certainly his music would not be so
highly regarded if it were, as sometimes has been suggested, little more
than exercises to show the cleverness of technique.  It is exactly that
that cleverness is shrouded in eroticism, in beauty, in deeply conveyed
emotions that sets it apart from the rest of the classical literature.

Jonathan