Donald Satz wrote:

>Robert Peters responds to me:
>
>>>Seriously, I'd wager that Bach could have written great music to just
>>>about any stimuli.
>>
>>Probably but the crucial point is that he did not.
>
>I don't see anything crucial about it, and there is also no evidence
>that Robert's statement is correct.  Robert has no special insight into
>Bach's inner mind anymore than I or anyone else does.

I never said I had, Don.  The point is that you began this exchange with
a very bold statement: that "Bach could have written great music to just
about any stimuli".  Now, since you have "no special insight into Bach's
inner mind" how can you prove your statement?

>>No, Bach did not choose "just about any stimuli", he was a Christian and
>>wrote highly Christian music.
>
>That's it?  We're going to take perhaps the greatest composer in history
>and just identify him as a Christian who wrote Christian music.  By the
>way, it isn't Christian music, it's Bach's music and it has universal
>appeal.

Don, this is splitting hairs.  All the cantatas, the passions, the
church organ music, the mass, the magnificat - surely it's Bach's music
and surely it's Christian music.  No one denies that Christian music can
have universal appeal but it's still Christian music since it's written
for Christian service and by a devoted Christian.  It takes nothing away
from Bach's genius to state this simple fact: most of his work is Christian
music.

>Robert paints Bach as a one-dimensional composer when he has no idea
>what other stimuli Bach used when composing his works.  So much of Bach's
>music clearly had nothing to do with religion.

Don, why not quote my exact words?  I wrote that MOST of Bach's music
is Christian and this is simply true.  I do not know why Bach wrote the
Goldberg Variations and the Brandenburg Concertos are not Christian -
but cantatas and masses and passions are Christian music, if you like
it or not.

>Even for those works connected to religious inspiration, we have no
>reason to assume that *only* religious inspiration was the source.
>Bach knows the truth, and he's not talking these days.

I never said that Christian belief was the only source for these works.
But the truth remains: they are Christian works.

>Bach is one of the greatest composers of all time.  His music tells
>me that he was a complicated individual likely deriving inspiration
>from an almost inexhaustible supply of sources including the world of
>mathematics.

Interesting: you write that I claim to have a special insight into Bach's
mind and reduce the guy (what I do not do).  And now you tell us that a
little bird told you that Bach was a highly "complicated individual" and
not `only a Christian.  Don, I think we all see the Bach we want to see.
The historical figure Johann Sebastian Bach was a devoted Christian.
What is bad about this?

>To say that Bach wrote highly Christian music and leave it at that
>reduces Bach to a 'middle-man' between God and Bach's audience.

I think for Bach himself this would be a flattering title.

>I think too highly of Bach to attach such limitations to his genius.

I don't see that it limitates Bach to say that he was, besides other
things, a Christian who wrote wonderful Christian music with universal
appeal.

Robert