Robert Peters wrote:

>What is the mysterious X which makes Bach's music so touching that even
>an agnostic guy like me feels like a Christian when listening to the St
>Matthew-Passion?

I cannot concur in the fullness of your assertion.  I cannot
dispute your own reaction, but I can assert mine to be quite different
and somewhat the same.  As a Jewish atheist I find Bach's two passions
the most incredible works of music ever.  I still see the plenitude of
Judenhass which informs the Johannes-Passion.  But, for all that, this
music has always overwhelmed me in a way that no other music ever will.
I must believe that Bach was infused with your "X" and personally I
believe that, had he lived in a different culture and time, his greatness
would have been employed to express the belief system of that other place
and time.  Think e.g.  Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides.  The greatness
of Bach's music need not depend on the message of his texts.  For those
for whom it does, it does.  For me, it is great in its universality and
it transcending of the texts of its culture.

Yoel