Eric Willstaedt wrote:

>What makes a piece of music mystical?  Is it just a lack of tonal
>centers(as far as western music is concerned)?

First of all, What is mysticism? Specialists see it as a way of thinking
that rises from a religious, or numinous experiece.  Wiilliam James wrote
that four qualities distinguished mysticism from other ways of thinking:
transiency, passivity, an origin from the innermost, and ineffability.
George Mavrodes,one of the best contemporary writers on the subject,
asserts that in addition to these qualities, mysticism invloves a fith,
namely "an altered state of consciousness--such as haviang visitions,
swooning in trances, and so forth.  How does it express itself in Music?
We]l, one way, surely, is via the mystic composer, eg Hildegard von Bingen.
For Transiency look, perhaps, to Wagner; for the Innermost, to Bruckner;
for Ineffability to Messiaen; for Passiivity to a Bach oratorio.

Denis Fodor                             Internet:[log in to unmask]