Ron Chaplin wrote: >Could a reason for a distinction between the emotional content of the >works of Bach and Handel be that they wrote music for different audiences? That could certainly account for some of the differences. As Ron indicated, Bach's audience was non-commercial while Handel's was highly commercial. Although I wasn't there, I assume that Handel had to place a high priority on composing music that would "grab" the audience. With Bach, God "grabs" the audience. But, there must have also been some restrictions on Bach with his audience being in a church. Write some sacrilegious music and you're out the door. Don Satz [log in to unmask]