# Mystical Genre(s)



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Which genres tap into your sense of mystery the most? For me it is the mass and requiem works that get me to that place the most.

I think it makes sense since they are meant to be spiritual works, they are effective in evoking that special sense of wonder.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Which genre(s) tap into your sense of mystery the most? For me it is the mass and requiem works that get me to that place the most.
> 
> I think it makes sense since they are meant to be spiritual works, they are effective in evoking that special sense of wonder.


Early French baroque I think, composers like Sainte Colombe, Demachy, René Mezangeau and Old Gaultier, maybe even Louis Couperin and d'Anglebert.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

And I suppose the Requiem is a form of a mass, so for me it is just the mass.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Beethoven never wrote a requiem but thought about it. "Among all the composers alive Cherubini is the most worthy of respect. I am in complete agreement, too, with his conception of the 'Requiem,' and if ever I come to write one I shall take note of many things."


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Oh another thing that seems to me to cultivate a feeling of mystery - Georg Muffat’s concertos.

Re the mass, one central moment in it is the transubstantiation, and clearly it’s a great mystery. There is a lot of wonderfully discordant and mysterious music designed to accompany it, the genre is called “elevation toccatas”

Horatio Radulescu is a composer whose works seem to me to exude mystery, especially the 4th quartet. Jonathan Harvey is worth exploring in this respect also.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Lots of Philip Glass music achieves this for me, certain moments of Tchaikovsky's _Romeo and Juliet Overture _(the slow parts), a lot of Impressionism strikes me as mysterious sounding and composers related to Impressionism like Takemitsu and Messiaen.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

do you mean choral works in general, which include oratorios, chorales, vespers, motets, cantatas, litanies?


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Ah I see I’ve made a mistake, I’ve confused mystical and mystery. Ignore everything I’ve said!

For mystical you have to go to Scriabin, about whom I know next to zero.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

I think voices are critical ingredient in making music sound mystical


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Mandryka said:


> Ah I see I've made a mistake, I've confused mystical and mystery. Ignore everything I've said!
> 
> For mystical you have to go to Scriabin, about whom I know next to zero.


Well, the OP mentioned mystery, but also added "spiritual." Since all metaphysical area of religion and spiritualism are unprovable and unknowable, then the music you mentioned, as well as most religious Western music, could be included. Unless that would be heresy...(lightning strike)

Yes, I get it from Glass, and from Varese, Jolivet, Cage, even some Schoenberg. I've recently noticed the strong hints of spirituality in Charles Ives, particularly the piece "The Unanswered Question."


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Which genres tap into your sense of mystery the most? For me it is the mass and requiem works that get me to that place the most.
> 
> I think it makes sense since they are meant to be spiritual works, they are effective in evoking that special sense of wonder.


I agree more traditional choral works have this thing, whether inherent spiritual nature, or what I associate with the spiritual, or just superstition. I'm no longer religious in a technical sense, but I still feel something when I listen to Monteverdi's Verspers or Victoria's Requiem. When I listened to certain passages of Mozart I also got transported to that place. Maybe the music is something like a drug.

Some of Debussy's and Ravel's music also sound mystical to me, I feel immersed in Nature. I also find Webern's symphony very mystical.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> Ah I see I've made a mistake, I've confused mystical and mystery. Ignore everything I've said!
> 
> For mystical you have to go to Scriabin, about whom I know next to zero.


They can be interchangeable terms, it just depends on how we view them. I suppose I do mean evoking a sense of mysticism.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

some medieval, renaissance and baroque sacred music, for example Hildegard von Bingen, Missa Papae Marcelli, the masses of Zelenka, or some requiems, or some french grand motets of Lully, Rameau, Couperin or Charpentier
and from the more modern composers Scriabin and Messiaen and sacred music of Poulenc


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

I'm having difficulty imagining what mystical music might be like. Is it merely music that _sounds _a bit dreamy or holy, or is it about music that _seeks to __portray _a mystical experience or a mystical space. If the latter then there is, perhaps, Messiaen and also Tippett's Vision of St Augustine (a work I have long loved). And then there is Tavener (not Taverner), a composer I know little about.

Or is it, on the other hand, music that seeks to _help you into a mystical state_, like the music the dervishes whirled to?


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

Questions like this confound me. People seem to know what they mean when they say something like mystical but I do not. I looked it up in an online dictionary and found these definitions:

1. relating to mystics or religious mysticism.
2. spiritually allegorical or symbolic; transcending human understanding.
3. relating to ancient religious mysteries or other occult or esoteric rites.
4. inspiring a sense of spiritual mystery, awe, and fascination.

To meet these definitions the music that most comes to mind for me is Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 32, the second movement in particular. This music for me transcends the human experience in ways other music does not. I would add the his sonatas Nos. 28, 30 and 31 have similar qualities.

I would also add that a lot of the music of the Second Viennese School, such as Berg's Violin Concerto or Chamber Symphony and/or Webern's Symphony or Six Pieces for Large Orchestra, explore similarly. Ligeti's Lux Aeterna too and maybe even Rautavaara's Concerto for Birds. These things are all obviously real but maybe they aren't too.

I've heard some Wagner from the Ring that might go these places but the text makes it all too earthbound.

To me, for music to be mystical it can barely explore any substantial earthly or heavenly ground or meaning insofar as those two places are so well described and imagined as to be mystical.

I listen to a lot of masses, requiems and sacred choral music and don't know any I would describe as mystical. To me that kind of thing is reserved for music that suggests it is religions but really isn't such as Mahler's Symphonies Nos. 2 and 8 which describe the realm between earth and God's kingdom.

There was a Biblical prophet, now doubted in the religious community, named Ezekiel who claimed to see a big wheel in the sky that was God's kingdom. A famous song was written about it saying there was a wheel inside a wheel, each moving counterclockwise to the other.

I saw a prospective drawing of some of this once; each wheel had eyes in it blinking and staring while the wheels moved in opposite directions. That was tangible but also mystical.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

Phil loves classical said:


> Some of Debussy's and Ravel's music also sound mystical to me, I feel immersed in Nature. I also find Webern's symphony very mystical.


Certainly agree with Debussy (especially the orchestral works), Ravel (everything) and the Webern symphony, definitely. It's a dense work but one of immense power, mysticism, mystery. I've read that he had written a journal entry the day of the premiere and he wrote something really simple and mundane, like "That went really well" or something along those lines, and that kind of told me something about his character. A real genius in his art form.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

A place I can often find something like what is being described here is in lieder, especially in the complicated poetry of Schiller and others in Schubert's songs such as Die Erlking that describes four different entities including a monster, An Schwager Kronos about a chariot ride to Hell, and Haydn's Spirit's Song that describes Mrs. Hunter's poem about a person now dead turned to ghost come back and visiting former loved ones on earth.

There's a lot of spiritual mystery in Dvorak's "Grimm's Fairy Tale" tone poems like the Noonday Witch as well. A lot of other Romantic era composers created similar chilly extra-earthly visions in their music, notably in programmatic tone poems.

Liszt, the creator of the tone or symphonic poem, wrote a number of them that explored extra-earthly subjects including Prometheus, What One Hears On the Mountain, and especially From the Cradle to the Grave that attempts to describe all of existence. 

All told, of all the great composers, I would say Franz Liszt had the best grasp on mysticism in music. His solo piano, orchestral, sacred choral and vocal music all traverse that ground. Among his known personal qualities was a religious mysticism.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

larold said:


> All told, of all the great composers, I would say Franz Liszt had the best grasp on mysticism in music. His solo piano, orchestral, sacred choral and vocal music all traverse that ground. Among his known personal qualities was a religious mysticism.


an example of "myst in Liszt"


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

larold said:


> There was a Biblical prophet, now doubted in the religious community, named Ezekiel who claimed to see a big wheel in the sky that was God's kingdom. A famous song was written about it saying there was a wheel inside a wheel, each moving counterclockwise to the other.


Was that famous song "The Wheel in the Sky" by Journey, or "The Windmills of Your Mind?"


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

For some reason the term 'mystical' doesn't quite work for me, it seems to denote something possibly false, like what Zappa is singing about in _Cosmic Debris_. So any music I enjoy I wouldn't classify as 'mystical'. The music I referenced earlier in the thread falls under the category of 'mysterious' to me.

As far as powerful spiritual music like Bach's _Mass in B minor_ or Mozart's _Requiem_, the words I associate with those masterpieces would be words like 'sacred' and 'ineffable'.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

For me, this thread is about the unconscious, Man, something a little darker and more evil than Bach's Masses or even Liszt's religious ecstasies. I'm more interested in what Liszt did _before_ he repented, something closer to sin. That's what "mystic" means to me.

I'm going to say, "Yes, let's call it mystical," even if that sounds like 'the occult' or paganism. Because this is the 20th century, and the unconscious is of interest to artists. Stravinsky, with The Rite of Spring, brings forth all kinds of pagan imagery...Varese was also interested in the arcane, alchemy, the stars...Jolivet, the pupil of Varese, also has a very incantatory dimension to his music. George Crumb as well. Who knows if it's false or true? Let's get out the Tarot cards, some girls, and who knows what may happen in the dark?

"The problem with new age music is that there's no evil in it." -Brian Eno


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

millionrainbows said:


> For me, this thread is about the unconscious, Man, something a little darker and more evil than Bach's Masses or even Liszt's religious ecstasies. I'm more interested in what Liszt did _before_ he repented, something closer to sin. That's what "mystic" means to me.
> 
> I'm going to say, "Yes, let's call it mystical," even if that sounds like 'the occult' or paganism. Because this is the 20th century, and the unconscious is of interest to artists. Stravinsky, with The Rite of Spring, brings forth all kinds of pagan imagery...Varese was also interested in the arcane, alchemy, the stars...Jolivet, the pupil of Varese, also has a very incantatory dimension to his music. George Crumb as well. Who knows if it's false or true? Let's get out the Tarot cards, some girls, and who knows what may happen in the dark?
> 
> "The problem with new age music is that there's no evil in it." -Brian Eno


I think Bach's music is representative of oneness, it has the balance of light and dark, achieved for him through the alternation of dissonances and consonances. It also has the mystery of the occult embedded in it. Occult simply means hidden knowledge. Christianity borrowed heavily from the occult and from paganism, so I don't see a sharp divide there. Tarot cards, Cabbala and astrology reference the hidden esoteric elements of religion (just look at the symbols for the major religions, they are based off of astro-theology, the sun for Christianity, the moon for Islam and the stellar cult for Judaism).

I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with the word mystical, phonetically it sounds similar to mythical, and it has been used a lot in sentences like 'the mystical tooth fairy' etc. So for me the word isn't quite right, if it works for you, that's good.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

millionrainbows said:


> I'm going to say, "Yes, let's call it mystical," even if that sounds like 'the occult' or paganism. Because this is the 20th century, and the unconscious is of interest to artists.


I hope you know we've been living in the 21st century for a couple of decades now 






This piece is a pretty incredible encapsulation of Orthodox mysticism. I have had a few borderline religious experiences listening to this, driving around the Blue Ridge mountains in the morning fog. Perhaps not for everyone, but I find it powerful.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

tdc said:


> I think Bach's music is representative of oneness, it has the balance of light and dark, achieved for him through the alternation of dissonances and consonances. It also has the mystery of the occult embedded in it. Occult simply means hidden knowledge. Christianity borrowed heavily from the occult and from paganism, so I don't see a sharp divide there. Tarot cards, Cabbala and astrology reference the hidden esoteric elements of religion (just look at the symbols for the major religions, they are based off of astro-theology, the sun for Christianity, the moon for Islam and the stellar cult for Judaism).
> 
> I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with the word mystical, phonetically it sounds similar to mythical, and it has been used a lot in sentences like 'the mystical tooth fairy' etc. So for me the word isn't quite right, if it works for you, that's good.


Ok, but I was only reacting to post #20, where you said:
_
"For some reason the term 'mystical' doesn't quite work for me, it seems to denote something possibly false, like what Zappa is singing about in __Cosmic Debris. So any music I enjoy I wouldn't classify as 'mystical'. The music I referenced earlier in the thread falls under the category of 'mysterious' to me."

_...and then in the next breath evoked the Masses of Bach and Mozart, along with the descriptors 'sacred' and 'ineffable.' It just sounded so Catholic, the way darkness is frequently swept under the rug in those religions.

As to Flamenco's remark "_I hope you know we've been living in the 21st century for a couple of decades now," _his blue-ridge experience sounds religious, and lacks the kind of "darkness and mystic" flavor that I thought was being evoked by this thread. 
Either I've misread the OP's intent, or I've stumbled into a vacation Bible school classroom. Ah well, to each his own.

In short, I agree with what larold said in his post #15: "_...(I) __don't know any (music) I would describe as mystical. To me that kind of thing is reserved for music that suggests it is religions but really isn't..."_


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## Flutter (Mar 26, 2019)

tdc said:


> For some reason the term 'mystical' doesn't quite work for me, it seems to denote something possibly false, like what Zappa is singing about in _Cosmic Debris_. So any music I enjoy I wouldn't classify as 'mystical'. The music I referenced earlier in the thread falls under the category of 'mysterious' to me.


That song is about fortune tellers, which are a different topic altogether....


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## Flutter (Mar 26, 2019)

millionrainbows said:


> For me, this thread is about the unconscious, Man, something a little darker and more evil than Bach's Masses or even Liszt's religious ecstasies. I'm more interested in what Liszt did _before_ he repented, something closer to sin. That's what "mystic" means to me.
> 
> I'm going to say, "Yes, let's call it mystical," even if that sounds like 'the occult' or paganism. Because this is the 20th century, and the unconscious is of interest to artists. Stravinsky, with The Rite of Spring, brings forth all kinds of pagan imagery...Varese was also interested in the arcane, alchemy, the stars...Jolivet, the pupil of Varese, also has a very incantatory dimension to his music. George Crumb as well. Who knows if it's false or true? Let's get out the Tarot cards, some girls, and who knows what may happen in the dark?


Yes, that's far more on-topic although it really is a broad category. I'd definitely put Messiaen in there too, there are a lot of others. It lingered around since the the Renaissance era but really surface wonderfully during the late Romantic era and fully flowering in the 20th century, where composers really had the musical tools to create works that embodies the aesthetic impressions that represent artistic imaginings of the experiential qualities gleamed from actual Mysticism (which of course can never truly be replicated in any sense) and it works well with the artistic pallets of texture not really available to a composer in prior centuries.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

millionrainbows said:


> Ok, but I was only reacting to post #20, where you said:
> _
> "For some reason the term 'mystical' doesn't quite work for me, it seems to denote something possibly false, like what Zappa is singing about in __Cosmic Debris. So any music I enjoy I wouldn't classify as 'mystical'. The music I referenced earlier in the thread falls under the category of 'mysterious' to me."
> 
> ...


I'm not sure if you've ever been to the blue ridge. It's a dark and mystical place.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

millionrainbows said:


> Ok, but I was only reacting to post #20, where you said:
> _
> "For some reason the term 'mystical' doesn't quite work for me, it seems to denote something possibly false, like what Zappa is singing about in __Cosmic Debris. So any music I enjoy I wouldn't classify as 'mystical'. The music I referenced earlier in the thread falls under the category of 'mysterious' to me."
> 
> ...


If you listen to the masses of Bach and Mozart, there is plenty of darkness in them, so I don't know where you are getting the idea of darkness being swept under the rug. Merely calling something 'sacred' or 'ineffable' also does not suggest any darkness being swept under the rug. I am not religious, and I agree that many religious people do what you are describing, but I don't associate the sacred music of Bach or Mozart with those aspects of religion. Maybe your own mind set is blocking you from really appreciating these works, because you associate them with the behaviors of certain narrow minded individuals. I think they tapped into the pure essence behind the exoteric teachings.

If you recall the OP started this thread, stating he found masses 'mystical'. So this thread was based on that premise, the 'darkness and mystic' aspect is your own idea that you have put forward, and I don't know where it even comes from. In what way do you think the word darkness is synonymous with mystical? If you look up the word mystical the word religious is a part of it's definition, darkness is not.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

I am not sure what kind of darkness this user is talking about, or how he can say with such certainty that an experience I had (in which he was clearly not present) "lacks" it. 

millionrainbows, I like your posts and your perspective. But frankly, you come off as an *******, speaking on others' experiences with music as if from a position of authority.


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## David Phillips (Jun 26, 2017)

Holst's Ode to Death is strangely uplifting rather than morbid.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

tdc said:


> If you listen to the masses of Bach and Mozart, there is plenty of darkness in them, so I don't know where you are getting the idea of darkness being swept under the rug. Merely calling something 'sacred' or 'ineffable' also does not suggest any darkness being swept under the rug.


Well, to discuss that is to discuss religion, and the concept of The Devil and darkness in general, and I don't want to go there in-depth. Let's just say that my ideas are not what the OP intended when he said "mystery" and entitled the thread with "mystic."


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

flamencosketches said:


> I am not sure what kind of darkness this user is talking about, or how he can say with such certainty that an experience I had (in which he was clearly not present) "lacks" it.


I was assuming more of a "dark" interpretation to the "mystic." If everyone wants to see "mystic" in a lighter, more religious sense, then it was not my intent to offend anyone here.



> millionrainbows, I like your posts and your perspective. But frankly, you come off as an *******, speaking on others' experiences with music as if from a position of authority.


Thank you, Flamenco, I think...Okay, back to Sunday School. :lol:


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

I am not seeing mystic in a lighter religious sense. I'm not religious, and you don't know how much darkness is my life. Quit making assumptions about someone you don't know. And you're welcome


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

flamencosketches said:


> I am not seeing mystic in a lighter religious sense. I'm not religious, and you don't know how much darkness is my life. Quit making assumptions about someone you don't know. And you're welcome


I guess Sartre was correct: 
"We only become what we are by the radical and deep-seated refusal of that which others have made us." -Jean-Paul Sartre


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

millionrainbows said:


> I guess Sartre was correct:
> "We only become what we are by the radical and deep-seated refusal of that which others have made us." -Jean-Paul Sartre


then discard all the Jung mumbo-jumbo that has been imprinted on you, start using your critical thinking and become yourself


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Jacck said:


> then discard all the Jung mumbo-jumbo that has been imprinted on you, start using your critical thinking and become yourself


Yeah discard the Jung mumbo jumbo and start to think about Lacan.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

I could not sleep a couple of nights ago, and listened to the chant of Sibilla at 4 am. I found it quite mystical


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Jacck said:


> I could not sleep a couple of nights ago, and listened to the chant of Sibilla at 4 am. I found it quite mystical


Absolutely gorgeous!


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

Antonin Dvorak.


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## Guest (May 1, 2019)

Has Hildegard von Bingen been mentioned previously? If not, I find her works very "mystical", whatever that means.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Partita said:


> Has Hildegard von Bingen been mentioned previously? If not, I find her works very "mystical", whatever that means.


Yes, as far as "religiously" composed music goes, yes, I totally agree. I get something "different" from her music. The Church authorities were concerned about her, and considered heresy, because she said she "talked to God" or he spoke to her. A big no-no for a woman back in those days.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

Russian Orthodox choral music. Here's Tchaikovsky, from the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom.
I also recommend composer Pavel Chesnokov and of course Rachmaninoff for the choral works.






Outside of classical music: (dark) ambient music, such as Raison D'être


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## Guest (May 1, 2019)

DeepR said:


> Russian Orthodox choral music.


The "sacred concertos" of Dmitri Bortnyanski (1751-1825) are worth a listen in this genre.


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## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Which genres tap into your sense of mystery the most? For me it is the mass and requiem works that get me to that place the most.
> 
> I think it makes sense since they are meant to be spiritual works, they are effective in evoking that special sense of wonder.


As others have stated, I need a definition for the words "mystical" and "spiritual".

For every person I've heard use those words, I get just as many definitions.

If all you are referring to, is the feelings of awe and wonder one can feel about existence and the cosmos, so many genres elicit those feelings in me. Not sure I can narrow it down to specific genres.

I can think of particular works by various composers that has that effect on me.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Simon Moon said:


> As others have stated, I need a definition for the words "mystical" and "spiritual".
> 
> For every person I've heard use those words, I get just as many definitions.
> 
> ...


Do that then!


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