Eric Willstaedt wrote:

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

I sure don't think that it's necessarily a matter of lacking a tonal
center.  But I think that this question will be more productively discussed
among folks who have come to some agreement as to what they mean by
"mystical" (or, alternatively, as to what composers are to be considered
writers of "mystical music").

Here's part of a suggestion.  Mystical experience is typically thought
to be non-spatio-temporal.  Well, music isn't (obviously) spatial to begin
with, but one might think that music that has the effect of "suspending
time" might qualify as mystical.  Music that has this effect for me is
as diverse as Gregorian and Orthodox chant and Bruckner adagios.  This of
course says nothing about how the feat is accomplished, though, as I say,
I think it is not the lack of a tonal center.  Perhaps it has to do with
a perceived lack of "movement," harmonic or otherwise.  In any case, this
seems to me to be only one part of the puzzle, but the puzzle is, I think,
an interesting one.

Nick
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