Bernard Chasan writes:

>The Passions in particular are so wedded to the central Chirstian story,
>and so clearly derive their expressiveness from that narrative, that I,
>also a Jewish agnostic, choose not to listen to them.

Understood - it can be hard to go along with the words for any length
of time.  However, I'm not going to discard fantastic music because of
any text.  I try to just key on the universal human emotions underlying
the words; that way, I feel I get as much out of Bach's choral music as
one who has religious fervor.

>For me, the glory of Bach resides in the keyboard music.

You won't get any argument from me.  The Goldberg Variations and Well
Tempered Clavier are the best music in this world.  Can we add in the
organ works as well?  Some great stuff there, including the Leipzig
Chorales which are associated with religious text.  Nobody could derive
greater enlightenment and spirituality from those pieces than I do.
Well, I don't really know that to be true, but I think that the folks
who assume that the religious individual has a leg up on atheists and
agnostics concerning Bach's sacred choral music need to think again.

Don Satz
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