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The Great Passion
A SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR'A masterpiece' SCOTSMAN'A wise, refreshing novel, and a touching human story ... Runcie has an expert imagination' HILARY MANTELLove and Death.Grief and Joy.Music that lasts forever.Leipzig, 1726. Eleven-year-old Stefan Silbermann, a humble organ-maker's son, has just lost his mother. Sent to Leipzig to train as a singer in the St Thomas Church choir, he struggles to stay afloat in a school where the teachers are as casually cruel as the students.Stefan's talent draws the attention of the Cantor – Johann Sebastian Bach. Eccentric, obsessive and kind, he rescues Stefan from the miseries of school by bringing him into his home as an apprentice. Soon Stefan feels that this ferociously clever, chaotic family is his own. But when tragedy strikes, Stefan's period of sanctuary in their household comes to a close.Something is happening, though. In the depths of his loss, the Cantor is writing a new the Saint Matthew Passion, to be performed for the first time on Good Friday. As Stefan watches the work rehearsed, he realises he is witness to the creation of one of the most extraordinary pieces of music that has ever been written.'Brilliant ... Readers will be enriched by this novel and its glimpse at genius' The Times, Historical Fiction of the Month 'Warmly, reverently, Runcie brings alive what it is like to take part, for the very first time, in one of the most extraordinary pieces of music ever written' Daily Telegraph
272 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2022
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8581 people want to read
About the author
James Runcie
41 books588 followersJames Runcie is a British novelist, documentary film-maker, television producer, theatre director, and Artistic Director of the Bath Literature Festival.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 306 reviews
May 14, 2023
5 "transcendent, breathtaking, astonishing" stars !!
The Bronze Award Read of 2022 (third favorite read)
Thank you to Netgalley, the author and Bloomsbury USA for an e-copy of this novel. I am providing my honest review. This will be released March 2022.
As you read my review I encourage you to listen to excerpts from Bach's St. Matthew's Passion. Here are some excerpts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxNQl...
I am hopeful that this little review will encourage some of you to pick up this masterpiece historical fiction. This is the story of a year (1727) in Stefan Silberman's life where a young boy on the cusp on manhood is sent to study music in Leipzig at a boys' music school after the death of his mother as his father runs a prominent organ making enterprise in a much smaller town.
Stefan is taken in by J.S. Bach and his family and he is provided guidance in keyboard, organ, composition and above all sacred vocals. He is a fine boy soprano with carrot red hair who is grieving, bullied and trying to find meaning in the world, himself and God. We are taken by the hand into the world of sacred music, Lutheran wisdom (and platitudes), platonic and romantic love, deep everyday spirituality and the roles of the artist, the student, the woman.
This is a beautifully written, wise, humorous and very deep book on both the frailties and strength of the human spirit during 18th century Germany. We meet silly pastors and even sillier opera singers. We meet not only JS Bach but his second wife and children. We are amused by Telemann and Picander. Most of all we fall in love with Stefan and his struggles as he masters not only difficult vocal lines but his grief, his heart and how all this brings him closer to nature, to love, and to God.
As I read this deeply affecting and affective novel I was comforted, I was moved, my heart leapt with joy, tears often streamed down my cheeks and I cherished my faith, my loves and the entirety of my life experiences. This is a book that resonated deeply with my own soul strings and a novel that I will forever cherish.
I leave you with a quote made by a humble oboist and a wisdom that he shares with young Stefan
"I wonder perhaps, if silence is a kind of home. We have it before we are born and after we have died. it is there before the music begins and after it has ended. We should always recognize its power before we interrupt it..."
The Bronze Award Read of 2022 (third favorite read)
Thank you to Netgalley, the author and Bloomsbury USA for an e-copy of this novel. I am providing my honest review. This will be released March 2022.
As you read my review I encourage you to listen to excerpts from Bach's St. Matthew's Passion. Here are some excerpts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxNQl...
I am hopeful that this little review will encourage some of you to pick up this masterpiece historical fiction. This is the story of a year (1727) in Stefan Silberman's life where a young boy on the cusp on manhood is sent to study music in Leipzig at a boys' music school after the death of his mother as his father runs a prominent organ making enterprise in a much smaller town.
Stefan is taken in by J.S. Bach and his family and he is provided guidance in keyboard, organ, composition and above all sacred vocals. He is a fine boy soprano with carrot red hair who is grieving, bullied and trying to find meaning in the world, himself and God. We are taken by the hand into the world of sacred music, Lutheran wisdom (and platitudes), platonic and romantic love, deep everyday spirituality and the roles of the artist, the student, the woman.
This is a beautifully written, wise, humorous and very deep book on both the frailties and strength of the human spirit during 18th century Germany. We meet silly pastors and even sillier opera singers. We meet not only JS Bach but his second wife and children. We are amused by Telemann and Picander. Most of all we fall in love with Stefan and his struggles as he masters not only difficult vocal lines but his grief, his heart and how all this brings him closer to nature, to love, and to God.
As I read this deeply affecting and affective novel I was comforted, I was moved, my heart leapt with joy, tears often streamed down my cheeks and I cherished my faith, my loves and the entirety of my life experiences. This is a book that resonated deeply with my own soul strings and a novel that I will forever cherish.
I leave you with a quote made by a humble oboist and a wisdom that he shares with young Stefan
"I wonder perhaps, if silence is a kind of home. We have it before we are born and after we have died. it is there before the music begins and after it has ended. We should always recognize its power before we interrupt it..."
April 22, 2022
This is a powerful read IF you are in the right frame of mind AND you don’t mind a story that drags in places.
Its the early 18th century. Stefan, a 13 year old boy, has lost his mother. He has been sent to school in Leipzig by his father. His shocking red hair has made him fair game to bullying. the cantor of the school, Johann Sebastian Bach, takes notice of his talent as a soloist and invites Stefan to stay with him and his family and tutor him.
Music for this clan and community is such a balm for the heart and soul. For the joyous periods as well as the the darker and grievous ones.
It is a beautifully written but I just found it to move too slowly at times which was the natural rhythm of it.
Could be my Covid brain right now but this just wasn’t The Great Passion for me. I was intrigued enough to take it to the end but relieved when it was over. I think I would have been more excited for a flogging rather than the slogging.
3.5⭐️
Its the early 18th century. Stefan, a 13 year old boy, has lost his mother. He has been sent to school in Leipzig by his father. His shocking red hair has made him fair game to bullying. the cantor of the school, Johann Sebastian Bach, takes notice of his talent as a soloist and invites Stefan to stay with him and his family and tutor him.
Music for this clan and community is such a balm for the heart and soul. For the joyous periods as well as the the darker and grievous ones.
It is a beautifully written but I just found it to move too slowly at times which was the natural rhythm of it.
Could be my Covid brain right now but this just wasn’t The Great Passion for me. I was intrigued enough to take it to the end but relieved when it was over. I think I would have been more excited for a flogging rather than the slogging.
3.5⭐️
April 4, 2025
Lovely imagining of the year Bach wrote St. Matthew Passion told through the eyes of a young singer.
Perfect Lenten read.
Perfect Lenten read.
March 9, 2022
This was a beautiful story….
You don’t need to know anything about Johann Sebastian Bach to enjoy this.
I am now going to go listen to The Great Passion on YouTube.
I am going to leave here Jaidee’s beautiful review that enticed me to read this… Thank you Jaidee!
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Also thank you to Netgalley and Bloomsbury USA for the ARC!
You don’t need to know anything about Johann Sebastian Bach to enjoy this.
I am now going to go listen to The Great Passion on YouTube.
I am going to leave here Jaidee’s beautiful review that enticed me to read this… Thank you Jaidee!
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Also thank you to Netgalley and Bloomsbury USA for the ARC!
December 13, 2021
The Great Passion beautifully imagines a story behind Bach’s writing of the St. Matthew Passion. It explores grief and music, and how music helps to cope with grief - in this case resulting in a masterpiece of musical composition.
In 1727, after the passing of his mother, thirteen-year-old Stefan Silbermann is sent by his father to Leipzig to sing and learn the organ and work with proper musicians. At school, Stefan continues to be grief-stricken. He is homesick and with his red hair he is a target of teasing. Later with his angelic voice and favoritism shown by the school’s cantor, John Sebastian Bach, Stefan becomes also a target of bullying.
Bach’s family takes Stefan under their wing. They show him love which he knew from his mother, but was missing from his father. No matter how crowded Bach’s house is, there is always room for love and showing kindness and charity. The love of Bach’s family shines throughout this story.
As they prepare for the performance of the Passion, the true meaning of passion comes touchingly through the story. When a tragedy strikes the Bach’s family, Stefan witnesses someone else’s grief and the solace of religion and music. Stefan is told that no matter how deep the grief is, the suffering is not to dwell on it, but to learn and grow from it. You draw a moral lesson from the tragedy, and even when you morn, you still need to carry on with your life. Being an example for all to see is exactly what Passion is about.
Deeply moving characters bring depth and wisdom as they question the greatest mystery – the life itself. John Sebastian Bach, through the eyes of the children, isn’t always easy to live with, but the children know that they are loved, and that’s the best legacy to leave your children.
Beautiful exploration of grief and love as a young boy gifted with an extraordinary singing voice, deeply feels the loss of his mother. He sees the world without his mother “so much more raw, exposed and frightening, with so much less protection and solace from the fearful enormities of what lay ahead.” He misses his mother’s vivacity, a taste for adventure and surprise. But under the tutelage of Bach, he learns to be resilient.
The Great Passion is a finely crafted mystery of life itself and how one can be transformed through grief, music and love. With profound exploration of characters, bringing remarkably authentic and compelling depiction of musically talented family; and how their music transforms not only them, but also the others, by giving people comfort through music.
Source: ARC was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Review originally posted at mysteryandsuspense.com
In 1727, after the passing of his mother, thirteen-year-old Stefan Silbermann is sent by his father to Leipzig to sing and learn the organ and work with proper musicians. At school, Stefan continues to be grief-stricken. He is homesick and with his red hair he is a target of teasing. Later with his angelic voice and favoritism shown by the school’s cantor, John Sebastian Bach, Stefan becomes also a target of bullying.
Bach’s family takes Stefan under their wing. They show him love which he knew from his mother, but was missing from his father. No matter how crowded Bach’s house is, there is always room for love and showing kindness and charity. The love of Bach’s family shines throughout this story.
As they prepare for the performance of the Passion, the true meaning of passion comes touchingly through the story. When a tragedy strikes the Bach’s family, Stefan witnesses someone else’s grief and the solace of religion and music. Stefan is told that no matter how deep the grief is, the suffering is not to dwell on it, but to learn and grow from it. You draw a moral lesson from the tragedy, and even when you morn, you still need to carry on with your life. Being an example for all to see is exactly what Passion is about.
Deeply moving characters bring depth and wisdom as they question the greatest mystery – the life itself. John Sebastian Bach, through the eyes of the children, isn’t always easy to live with, but the children know that they are loved, and that’s the best legacy to leave your children.
Beautiful exploration of grief and love as a young boy gifted with an extraordinary singing voice, deeply feels the loss of his mother. He sees the world without his mother “so much more raw, exposed and frightening, with so much less protection and solace from the fearful enormities of what lay ahead.” He misses his mother’s vivacity, a taste for adventure and surprise. But under the tutelage of Bach, he learns to be resilient.
The Great Passion is a finely crafted mystery of life itself and how one can be transformed through grief, music and love. With profound exploration of characters, bringing remarkably authentic and compelling depiction of musically talented family; and how their music transforms not only them, but also the others, by giving people comfort through music.
Source: ARC was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Review originally posted at mysteryandsuspense.com
March 15, 2022
This begins as Stefan Silbermann hears of the death of Sebastian Bach, the news coming to him when he receives a letter in his workshop where he makes organs, assisted by other men. He asks the five men for a moment of silence, and recognizing the solemnity of the moment, they clap their hands in preparation of prayer. They all knew Bach, even if not as closely associated as Stefan Silbermann had been.
Memories come flooding back to Stefan, memories beginning with the death of his mother, and the period of time that followed when his father sent him to audition for the boys’ choir then led by Bach, who was then the church cantor for Leipzig’s St. Thomas Church in 1723. Stefan is accepted into the choir, if not readily accepted among all the other boys. Those that dislike him do so out of jealousy, tease him about his red hair, and basically spend their time trying to make his life as miserable as possible by stealing what few momentos he has brought with him from home, as well as making sure he is blamed for things he hasn’t done, and receives the punishment.
But Bach believes in this boy, and not just his voice. Bach wants to deter Stefan from leaving the school, and thus the choir. Recognizing the talent in him, he invites him to live with his family, where he won’t be bullied quite as often, or blamed for things he hasn’t done. It is there that Stefan finds a place he can call home and becomes part of their family. Anna, Bach’s wife, is kind to him, and Catharina Bach’s daughter, befriends him. Catharina, whose obsession with collecting butterflies that frequent this story, if only briefly. A first love.
This is as beautifully composed as the music it refers to, and although the time period it is set in is nearly 300 years ago, there is so much that hasn’t changed. The school-boy bullying of a new student, the heartbreak of loss, unrequited love. A striving for the beauty in this world, and the desire to hold onto that beauty. The way that an opinion of a person is often based on one impression, or one flaw - as though we don’t all have flaws.
All the stars for this profoundly moving and lovely reflection on life, love, loss, and the beauty found in both music and silence.
Published: 15 Mar 2022
Many thanks for the ARC provided by Bloomsbury USA / Bloomsbury Publishing
July 7, 2022
A historical novel with a compelling narrator—a thirteen-year-old who finds himself in Bach's circle.
February 8, 2022
Bach has died and adult Stefan Silbermann recalls the portion of his boyhood spent with Bach and his family. At this time, Bach was a cantor and utilizes Stefan’s beautiful voice to its utmost. Bach, himself, is portrayed as a deeply human: envious, irascible, formidable, talented, humorous, loving, and prone to sermonizing. Bach’s deep religiosity leads him to musically represent the Passion of Saint Matthew. This is an adoring ode to that endeavor.
March 24, 2022
The Grand Passion's plot moves forward gradually, letting the reader sink into the moments the novel depicts—and while in some ways these are ordinary moments, they are also extraordinary moments. The novel takes place in 1727-28 in Leipzig where Johann Sebastian Bach is cantor (essentially music director, conductor, and composer all in one) at a cathedral school. After his mother's death, thirteen-year-old Stefan Silberman is sent to spend a year at the school—a year that will allow his father to mourn privately and is intended to "distract" Stefan from his loss. Life at the school is a misery until Stefan's singing voice draws Bach's attention. After that, life is still a misery in many ways, but Stefan now has a purpose: singing, learning to play the organ, and gradually becoming an extended part of the Bach family.
The Passion of the title is Bach's St. Matthew Passion—a massive, ground-breaking choral work that explores the depths and commonalities of grief. The St. Matthew Passion employs two choirs and two orchestras and runs for just under three hours. In the latter half of the book, Bach begins composing this work and Stefan is there as a singer, as a copyist, and as a boy witnessing an exceptional moment in Western music.
I particularly enjoyed this title for two reasons. First, I was fascinated by the author's exploration of Bach's spirituality. I assume I'm like many people in thinking of Bach primarily as a composer in the abstract, a man who produced music and about whom I know little else. I'd connected Bach's music more to the liturgical calendar and his day-to-day work demands rather than to his faith. Runcie's Bach is spiritually driven, and for him spirit and music are a single entity.
Second, I appreciated Stefan's voice—both as a boy and as an elderly man looking back after Bach's death at the time when his life and Bach's intersected. The prose is direct and unornamented. Stefan attempts to explain to himself as best he can what he sees around him during times bringing change and opportunity, but also isolation.
I can't speak to the historical accuracy of this novel. I imagine there are sources that Runcie carefully explored, but clearly much of the novel's content is Runcie's creation. Is it "truth"? I don't know. But as an exploration of spirituality, musical inspiration, and coming of age, The Great Passion is remarkable.
I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via NetGalley; the opinions are my own.
The Passion of the title is Bach's St. Matthew Passion—a massive, ground-breaking choral work that explores the depths and commonalities of grief. The St. Matthew Passion employs two choirs and two orchestras and runs for just under three hours. In the latter half of the book, Bach begins composing this work and Stefan is there as a singer, as a copyist, and as a boy witnessing an exceptional moment in Western music.
I particularly enjoyed this title for two reasons. First, I was fascinated by the author's exploration of Bach's spirituality. I assume I'm like many people in thinking of Bach primarily as a composer in the abstract, a man who produced music and about whom I know little else. I'd connected Bach's music more to the liturgical calendar and his day-to-day work demands rather than to his faith. Runcie's Bach is spiritually driven, and for him spirit and music are a single entity.
Second, I appreciated Stefan's voice—both as a boy and as an elderly man looking back after Bach's death at the time when his life and Bach's intersected. The prose is direct and unornamented. Stefan attempts to explain to himself as best he can what he sees around him during times bringing change and opportunity, but also isolation.
I can't speak to the historical accuracy of this novel. I imagine there are sources that Runcie carefully explored, but clearly much of the novel's content is Runcie's creation. Is it "truth"? I don't know. But as an exploration of spirituality, musical inspiration, and coming of age, The Great Passion is remarkable.
I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via NetGalley; the opinions are my own.
April 5, 2022
It's 1727 in Leipzig, but it's all humankind in experience.
The Cantor expects much. Too much. But in the process and in the living realities, all are gifted with inspiration, aspiration, and ultimate joy. Those that perform, those that listen, those that exist in now. Everyone.
What eyes are expressed in this simple story. And never appreciated more either by those of us who live within the close depths of present current good-byes.
Absolutely the best read for promise, awareness of energy described, appreciation for life's smallest blessings/ gifts, and with/ how to the owning for immense steps to better. Not looking backward, not piling chips of blame or anger, not denying the best choices possible. Ridding of all of that past baggage despite sickness, grief, downfall of spirit.
Stefan received much good advice. Even with the first hint from the oboist of "I will not be threatened". But the Cantor, his kin, and his chorus helped the motherless down the lonely path.
If you have no knowledge of Bach or his family, don't preread any information- take this straight on.
The Cantor expects much. Too much. But in the process and in the living realities, all are gifted with inspiration, aspiration, and ultimate joy. Those that perform, those that listen, those that exist in now. Everyone.
What eyes are expressed in this simple story. And never appreciated more either by those of us who live within the close depths of present current good-byes.
Absolutely the best read for promise, awareness of energy described, appreciation for life's smallest blessings/ gifts, and with/ how to the owning for immense steps to better. Not looking backward, not piling chips of blame or anger, not denying the best choices possible. Ridding of all of that past baggage despite sickness, grief, downfall of spirit.
Stefan received much good advice. Even with the first hint from the oboist of "I will not be threatened". But the Cantor, his kin, and his chorus helped the motherless down the lonely path.
If you have no knowledge of Bach or his family, don't preread any information- take this straight on.
July 12, 2024
Absolutely loved this historic novel that takes place in Leipzig during the years when Johann Sebastian Bach was the “Cantor”, or Music Master, at St. Thomas school, where he wrote, among other masterpieces, the “St. Matthew Passion” mass (the “great passion” of the title, that also refers to a love passion of the young protagonist).
Have you ever listened to that work? It’s about 2 hours long, which was a bit bonkers even for Bach’s times, but it is magnificent. The “O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden” section is my favorite one. It is also Paul Simon’s favorite section, so much so that he used that melody, put some new lyrics to it and called it “American Tune”.
Grief is a feeling that is present in many parts of this book (the author sadly lost his wife in 2020), but there are many joyous moments and I enjoyed the realistic and intimate descriptions of Bach’s family life, the author brought that to light with great elegance. He chose to give Bach, as a character, a personality that I’d say is most likely the one that the authentic Bach had: energetic, assertive, quick, brisk, dominating but also with a kind soul, serious and pious but also capable of buffoonery with his children. He was also a towering genius, but that side is not explored in the book.
As Bach himself said to the ones who paid him compliments: “Anyone who works hard with my same dedication can do what I did”.
Yeah, sure, mate.
We live the story mainly through the eyes of Stefan Silbermann, a grief-stricken thirteen-year-old, struggling with the death of his mother and his removal to a school in Leipzig, the city of music.
Despite his father's insistence that he try not to think of his mother too much, Stefan is haunted by her absence, and, to make matters worse, he's bullied by his new classmates (that part is a little excessive, with the bully being “just evil” and Stefan being just a hapless loser.
But when the school's cantor, Johann Sebastian Bach, takes notice of his new pupil's beautiful singing voice and draws him from the choir to be a soloist, Stefan's life is permanently changed.
Over the course of the next several months, and under Bach's careful tutelage, Stefan's musical skill progresses, and he is allowed to work as a copyist for Bach's many musical works.
But mainly, drawn into Bach's family life and away from the cruelty in the dorms and the lonely hours of his mourning, Stefan begins to feel at home. When another tragedy strikes, this time in the Bach family, Stefan bears witness to the depths of grief, the horrors of death, the solace of religion, and the beauty that can spring from even the most profound losses.
A beautiful book that will resonate even more if you’re a christian, and if you love Bach’s music.
I don’t know if the author is religious or not, but he was very honest in portraying Bach’s religious passion and the good that his faith brought to his and his family’s life.
Have you ever listened to that work? It’s about 2 hours long, which was a bit bonkers even for Bach’s times, but it is magnificent. The “O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden” section is my favorite one. It is also Paul Simon’s favorite section, so much so that he used that melody, put some new lyrics to it and called it “American Tune”.
Grief is a feeling that is present in many parts of this book (the author sadly lost his wife in 2020), but there are many joyous moments and I enjoyed the realistic and intimate descriptions of Bach’s family life, the author brought that to light with great elegance. He chose to give Bach, as a character, a personality that I’d say is most likely the one that the authentic Bach had: energetic, assertive, quick, brisk, dominating but also with a kind soul, serious and pious but also capable of buffoonery with his children. He was also a towering genius, but that side is not explored in the book.
As Bach himself said to the ones who paid him compliments: “Anyone who works hard with my same dedication can do what I did”.
Yeah, sure, mate.
We live the story mainly through the eyes of Stefan Silbermann, a grief-stricken thirteen-year-old, struggling with the death of his mother and his removal to a school in Leipzig, the city of music.
Despite his father's insistence that he try not to think of his mother too much, Stefan is haunted by her absence, and, to make matters worse, he's bullied by his new classmates (that part is a little excessive, with the bully being “just evil” and Stefan being just a hapless loser.
But when the school's cantor, Johann Sebastian Bach, takes notice of his new pupil's beautiful singing voice and draws him from the choir to be a soloist, Stefan's life is permanently changed.
Over the course of the next several months, and under Bach's careful tutelage, Stefan's musical skill progresses, and he is allowed to work as a copyist for Bach's many musical works.
But mainly, drawn into Bach's family life and away from the cruelty in the dorms and the lonely hours of his mourning, Stefan begins to feel at home. When another tragedy strikes, this time in the Bach family, Stefan bears witness to the depths of grief, the horrors of death, the solace of religion, and the beauty that can spring from even the most profound losses.
A beautiful book that will resonate even more if you’re a christian, and if you love Bach’s music.
I don’t know if the author is religious or not, but he was very honest in portraying Bach’s religious passion and the good that his faith brought to his and his family’s life.
Read
December 18, 2024A sublime book.
July 30, 2022
Considering that J.S. Bach's "St Matthew Passion" is widely regarded as a pillar of the Western musical canon, it may appear surprising that we do not really know much about the composition and first performance of the Passion. We know that Bach wrote it for St Thomas Church, Leipzig, where he served as Kapellmeister or Thomascantor from 1723 to his death. We know that, as with many of the other sacred works, mostly cantatas, that Bach composed for the edification of the Leipzig congregation, the Passion was an artistic collaboration between Bach and Christian Friedrich Henrici, known as Picander, who provided poetic meditations to complement extracts from the Gospel of St Matthew. Most sources agree that the Passion was probably first performed at St Thomas Church, 11 April (Good Friday), 1727 although the year might also have been 1729. We can hazard a guess as to the identity of the musicians who performed for the Cantor – including the oboists Caspar Gleditsch and Gottfried Kornagel who, judging by the difficulty of the oboe parts, were great players indeed. Apart from these bare facts, we do not know much else.
In The Great Passion, James Runcie makes up for this historical vacuum with a bold imagining of the months leading up to the first performance of Bach’s masterpiece. Runcie’s narrator is Stefan Silbermann, a scion of the (real-life) German organ-building family. In 1750, Stefan, now in his late thirties, learns of the death of the Cantor, which leads him to reminisce about the year he spent as a student of the St Thomas Church in his early teens. At the time, still grieving following the death of his mother, bullied by the other schoolboys for his red hair, yet showing great promise as a singer and organist, Stefan is taken in by the cantor and his wife Anna Magdalena, and practically becomes a member of the Bach household. He witnesses at first hand the composer at his work, and unwittingly contributes to the creation of what would become known as the St Matthew Passion.
Runcie adopts a traditional and direct narrative style, free of experimental flourishes, and yet particularly appropriate for the voice of the earnest Stefan. The story skilfully interweaves fictional characters with plenty of historical ones – Johann Sebastian Bach and his wife Anna Magdalena, Bach’s children including Catharina (Stefan’s ‘love interest’ in this novel), Picander, oboists Gleditsch and Kornagel, and Bach’s rivals including composer Georg Philipp Telemann. In each case, Runcie takes what we know about these historical individuals and fleshes them out into real-life characters who speak through the pages of his novel. His portrayal of the cantor is particularly convincing. Despite Stefan’s awestruck respect for his mentor, we are still shown Sebastian’s very human characteristics. JSB is a workaholic with a deeply spiritual vein, but can also be jealous, short-tempered and, on occasion, arrogant. Both the historical and musical background are well-researched, and the recreation of the the atmosphere of church and school in 18th Century Leipzig has an authentic feel to it.
But where Runcie really triumphs is in his depiction of music. Writing about music is notoriously difficult – “like dancing about architecture”, to use a much-bandied phrase. Yet, in language which largely eschews technical terms, Runcie still manages to describe several of Bach’s works uncannily well, not least the Great Passion of the title. He also expresses the excitement of a first performance, the tension of the musicians, the expectations of the audience and that sense of satisfaction and release following a successful concert which performers know very well.
Runcie’s novel is one in which tragedy, suffering and death are all-pervasive. Yet, Runcie suggests, music – like faith – can accompany us in grief, leading us on a journey of healing. This is, ultimately, the message beautifully conveyed in this novel.
Full review, with a musical postscript at https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/20...
In The Great Passion, James Runcie makes up for this historical vacuum with a bold imagining of the months leading up to the first performance of Bach’s masterpiece. Runcie’s narrator is Stefan Silbermann, a scion of the (real-life) German organ-building family. In 1750, Stefan, now in his late thirties, learns of the death of the Cantor, which leads him to reminisce about the year he spent as a student of the St Thomas Church in his early teens. At the time, still grieving following the death of his mother, bullied by the other schoolboys for his red hair, yet showing great promise as a singer and organist, Stefan is taken in by the cantor and his wife Anna Magdalena, and practically becomes a member of the Bach household. He witnesses at first hand the composer at his work, and unwittingly contributes to the creation of what would become known as the St Matthew Passion.
Runcie adopts a traditional and direct narrative style, free of experimental flourishes, and yet particularly appropriate for the voice of the earnest Stefan. The story skilfully interweaves fictional characters with plenty of historical ones – Johann Sebastian Bach and his wife Anna Magdalena, Bach’s children including Catharina (Stefan’s ‘love interest’ in this novel), Picander, oboists Gleditsch and Kornagel, and Bach’s rivals including composer Georg Philipp Telemann. In each case, Runcie takes what we know about these historical individuals and fleshes them out into real-life characters who speak through the pages of his novel. His portrayal of the cantor is particularly convincing. Despite Stefan’s awestruck respect for his mentor, we are still shown Sebastian’s very human characteristics. JSB is a workaholic with a deeply spiritual vein, but can also be jealous, short-tempered and, on occasion, arrogant. Both the historical and musical background are well-researched, and the recreation of the the atmosphere of church and school in 18th Century Leipzig has an authentic feel to it.
But where Runcie really triumphs is in his depiction of music. Writing about music is notoriously difficult – “like dancing about architecture”, to use a much-bandied phrase. Yet, in language which largely eschews technical terms, Runcie still manages to describe several of Bach’s works uncannily well, not least the Great Passion of the title. He also expresses the excitement of a first performance, the tension of the musicians, the expectations of the audience and that sense of satisfaction and release following a successful concert which performers know very well.
Runcie’s novel is one in which tragedy, suffering and death are all-pervasive. Yet, Runcie suggests, music – like faith – can accompany us in grief, leading us on a journey of healing. This is, ultimately, the message beautifully conveyed in this novel.
Full review, with a musical postscript at https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/20...
January 29, 2022
James Runcie is best known for his Grantchester novels and the television series based on them. His new novel The Great Passion takes us back to Bach and Leipzig in 1727, experienced through a prepubescent boy sent to study music before his voice breaks and he begins his career as a master organ maker, as is his father and his father was before him.
Stefan is still grieving for his mother when he arrives at the school. Harsh discipline and bullying make the adjustment hard. The cantor, Johann Sebastian Bach, notes the boy’s beautiful singing voice and ability on the organ. The rival soprano seethes at losing his place of favor with the cantor.
For a time, Stefan lives with Bach’s family, the house full of activity, music focused, but also joyful. Until the death of their infant daughter. Bach had lost his first, beloved wife, and although he happily found love again, the pain remains. Now his wife is grieving. Stefan’s rival’s mother also dies. The awareness of life’s brevity and pain pervades their lives.
In the midst of so much sorrow and loss, Bach is inspired to write a Good Friday cantata that will take listeners into the passion of Christ, putting them in the place of those who caused Jesus’ death and benefited from that act of love. The St. Matthew Passion is considered a masterpiece.
For perhaps we can only appreciate what it is to be alive by recognising what it means when that life is removed from us. We are ravaged by absence. The void opens around us…Then, afterwards, when life forces us to continue, and we resume what is left of our time on earth, we listen to music as survivors…We grow to understand that our wounds give life its richness…
from The Great Passion by James Runcie
I was a choral singer. I began singing alto in Third Grade, and continued through high school choirs and college and community choirs. I was in the Choral Arts Society when they sang the Bach B Minor Mass on the stage of the Academy of Music with the Philadelphia Orchestra. Reading the line “we were no longer individual singers or instrumentalists, our identities, hopes and fears had been subsumed into something greater than ourselves,” I recognized the feeling I had about choral singing.
The music has to do more than support the language, Monsieur Silbermann. It must take it to a place it could not get to on its own.
from The Great Passion by James Runcie
After reading the novel, I listened to the St Matthew Passion on Youtube, following with the choral music score my husband used when he sang it in college. As I listened to the singers and read the music, I understood the challenges of performing the music, so eloquently described in the novel. I understood the lessons Stefan had to learn about supporting the music, phrasing, where to take a breath.
The Passion has two parts, and Runcie tells us the sermon was given between them. In the first part, the choir speaks of the guilt we all share, asking “Is it I” who betrayed Jesus, clamoring for Jesus to be punished for challenging the religious leaders. The music is dramatic.
The second part is solemn, ending with Jesus laid in the tomb. Bach leaves us contemplative and sorrowful, the chorus singing the universal cry of grief, “We sit down in tears/And call to thee in the tomb:/Rest softly, softly rest!” I wondered what music Bach presented three days later on Easter Sunday to speak of the joy of resurrection and the embodiment of hope?
Runcie’s father was Archbishop of Canterbury. I am the wife of a retired minister, well versed in Christian thought and liturgy. (I even audited classes when my husband was in seminary.) I had to consider if a non-Christian could read this book, could respond to Bach’s music? Bach does amazing things in the music. I did some online research and learned that “the only recorded review of the St. Matthew Passion in Bach’s lifetime was from an aged widow in the congregation: “God help us! It’s an opera-comedy!’ I personally don’t know which part was the ‘comedy,’ but there is such drama to be found, arias of grief that speak to the common human experience: we die; we grieve.
Runcie imagines Bach’s desire to transport his listeners into a total engagement with the message, through his music. When he asks a widower to sing the bass, he counters every excuse, for he knows that the performance will be cathartic and the richer for the singer’s knowledge of human frailty and all the questions that come with a death.
The story of music engaging a grieving people and pointing the way toward hope is particularly meaningful today when so many have been lost. What does it mean to be alive? How do we live with our grief? Can we find the “advancing light” when we are blinded by loss and anguish? How can love save us? The characters in the book grapple with these big questions. As do we.
I received a free egalley from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.
Stefan is still grieving for his mother when he arrives at the school. Harsh discipline and bullying make the adjustment hard. The cantor, Johann Sebastian Bach, notes the boy’s beautiful singing voice and ability on the organ. The rival soprano seethes at losing his place of favor with the cantor.
For a time, Stefan lives with Bach’s family, the house full of activity, music focused, but also joyful. Until the death of their infant daughter. Bach had lost his first, beloved wife, and although he happily found love again, the pain remains. Now his wife is grieving. Stefan’s rival’s mother also dies. The awareness of life’s brevity and pain pervades their lives.
In the midst of so much sorrow and loss, Bach is inspired to write a Good Friday cantata that will take listeners into the passion of Christ, putting them in the place of those who caused Jesus’ death and benefited from that act of love. The St. Matthew Passion is considered a masterpiece.
For perhaps we can only appreciate what it is to be alive by recognising what it means when that life is removed from us. We are ravaged by absence. The void opens around us…Then, afterwards, when life forces us to continue, and we resume what is left of our time on earth, we listen to music as survivors…We grow to understand that our wounds give life its richness…
from The Great Passion by James Runcie
I was a choral singer. I began singing alto in Third Grade, and continued through high school choirs and college and community choirs. I was in the Choral Arts Society when they sang the Bach B Minor Mass on the stage of the Academy of Music with the Philadelphia Orchestra. Reading the line “we were no longer individual singers or instrumentalists, our identities, hopes and fears had been subsumed into something greater than ourselves,” I recognized the feeling I had about choral singing.
The music has to do more than support the language, Monsieur Silbermann. It must take it to a place it could not get to on its own.
from The Great Passion by James Runcie
After reading the novel, I listened to the St Matthew Passion on Youtube, following with the choral music score my husband used when he sang it in college. As I listened to the singers and read the music, I understood the challenges of performing the music, so eloquently described in the novel. I understood the lessons Stefan had to learn about supporting the music, phrasing, where to take a breath.
The Passion has two parts, and Runcie tells us the sermon was given between them. In the first part, the choir speaks of the guilt we all share, asking “Is it I” who betrayed Jesus, clamoring for Jesus to be punished for challenging the religious leaders. The music is dramatic.
The second part is solemn, ending with Jesus laid in the tomb. Bach leaves us contemplative and sorrowful, the chorus singing the universal cry of grief, “We sit down in tears/And call to thee in the tomb:/Rest softly, softly rest!” I wondered what music Bach presented three days later on Easter Sunday to speak of the joy of resurrection and the embodiment of hope?
Runcie’s father was Archbishop of Canterbury. I am the wife of a retired minister, well versed in Christian thought and liturgy. (I even audited classes when my husband was in seminary.) I had to consider if a non-Christian could read this book, could respond to Bach’s music? Bach does amazing things in the music. I did some online research and learned that “the only recorded review of the St. Matthew Passion in Bach’s lifetime was from an aged widow in the congregation: “God help us! It’s an opera-comedy!’ I personally don’t know which part was the ‘comedy,’ but there is such drama to be found, arias of grief that speak to the common human experience: we die; we grieve.
Runcie imagines Bach’s desire to transport his listeners into a total engagement with the message, through his music. When he asks a widower to sing the bass, he counters every excuse, for he knows that the performance will be cathartic and the richer for the singer’s knowledge of human frailty and all the questions that come with a death.
The story of music engaging a grieving people and pointing the way toward hope is particularly meaningful today when so many have been lost. What does it mean to be alive? How do we live with our grief? Can we find the “advancing light” when we are blinded by loss and anguish? How can love save us? The characters in the book grapple with these big questions. As do we.
I received a free egalley from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.
December 18, 2024
I want to come back with details, but here is the greatest compliment I can give a book: returning it to the library and buying my own copy.
Even more - a thing I've never done before - I bought *two* copies. Curt and I plan to read it aloud to each other (or read along with the SUPERLATIVE audio narration) in January.
If you love the music of J.S. Bach or if you have experienced grief, or if you love good writing I highly recommend James Runcie's The Great Passion .
Even more - a thing I've never done before - I bought *two* copies. Curt and I plan to read it aloud to each other (or read along with the SUPERLATIVE audio narration) in January.
If you love the music of J.S. Bach or if you have experienced grief, or if you love good writing I highly recommend James Runcie's The Great Passion .
January 9, 2025
“‘All I’ve done is to try to glimpse that music we might one day hear in heaven,’ he said. ‘Celestial music- the ultimate harmony, played with such variation that it has no end. There’s nothing complicated about it. Most of the time I just work. It is a duty. And the music only comes when I start. Then I just keep going until I finish. Love and work. That’s all there is. You labor away.’”
I really wish this had been written by a Lutheran because there were a number of times that it was painfully obvious it wasn’t and when it’s about one of the great Lutherans and his sacred music written for the Lutheran church, it’s pretty central to the story. Despite that, I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and if nothing else, it is sure to make you love Bach more, which is a worthy goal in and of itself. I especially liked the characterization of J S Bach and Anna Magdalena and their relationship and family.
2nd read: still a shame about the theology, still in love with Bach. Also why were there two glaring mistakes that should have been caught by any editor worth his salt? (First, that it’s not Mary, Elizabeth and Lazarus. Second, that you can’t use more strength to increase volume on an organ, nor can you hold down the keys till they stop playing. This is basic organ knowledge, I fear.)
I really wish this had been written by a Lutheran because there were a number of times that it was painfully obvious it wasn’t and when it’s about one of the great Lutherans and his sacred music written for the Lutheran church, it’s pretty central to the story. Despite that, I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and if nothing else, it is sure to make you love Bach more, which is a worthy goal in and of itself. I especially liked the characterization of J S Bach and Anna Magdalena and their relationship and family.
2nd read: still a shame about the theology, still in love with Bach. Also why were there two glaring mistakes that should have been caught by any editor worth his salt? (First, that it’s not Mary, Elizabeth and Lazarus. Second, that you can’t use more strength to increase volume on an organ, nor can you hold down the keys till they stop playing. This is basic organ knowledge, I fear.)
dnf
March 8, 2022Sadly, this book is just not appealing to me. Perhaps I will someday resume reading it. I made it up to 22% and it is just not my time to read it.
July 18, 2022
This is the story of one year in the life of Johann Sebastian Bach, 1727, the year he wrote "St. Matthew's Passion". The story is told through the eyes of a student who comes to Leipzig after the death of his mother, to study at the school where Bach is the Cantor. Stefan has a beautiful singing voice, still able to sing soprano at age 13, and so becomes a favorite student of Bach's. But Stefan is struggling with how to fit in with the other students, and the grief for his mother is at times overwhelming. Bach's family also has much to grieve, and the author does a wonderful job of describing how Bach's faith and his musical creation blend to tell the story of his grief, as well as to help heal.
April 6, 2022
Some really excellent reviews on this book already; I have some comments, so not a review, just some thoughts:
I am so grateful I am not living in Leipzig in 1729!!! Death came quickly and unexpectedly, especially for young children and babies. There was no understanding of nutrition, disease control, or hygiene. There was food scarcity, witch-burning and horrendous, torturous executions encouraging mob violence, and there was a reactive, overarching belief that life was suffering, but somehow a reward in heaven would recompense this. There was heartfelt hatred of other religions and denominations, and a heavy reliance on literal Scripture to uplift one in this harsh culture: again, mostly relying on a better outcome in heaven. As my music history teacher said, the Church was "the greatest show on earth"---a place where you could forget your troubles (fall asleep, read a paper, etc.). It was a day off from arduous work. A place where you could feel safe, and maybe choose to hear long, droning sermons and some beautiful music.
What a horrendous environment to live in. And yet, this culture promoted virtue, love, forgiveness (only if you were a member of the Protestant faith), and weirdly, excellence in music. Who knew?
In our American culture we are overindulgent, have a generally sloppy work ethic, and a comfortable, entertaining life. We eat too much, drink too much, and complain about anything difficult about our lives. The horrendous things in our American culture are hidden away (executions, Guantanamo, the outrageous abuse of families trying to immigrate to the U.S., racism, child abuse, misogyny) and so en masse we are not challenged with the painful inequities that the people of Leipzig had to endure in the 18th century. We simply just switch the channel, and all is good. We live in a bubble of opulence.
But somehow, out of the extremely difficult living conditions in the 18th century, incredible beauty erupted that still resonates 3 centuries later. Why?
Do we have anything in our culture that can compare with that?
Please, if you want to listen to the St. Matthew Passion, take the time to learn about "text painting". It will enhance your appreciation of the genius of J.S.Bach. (I tried to find a good YouTube reference to this subject, but was disappointed.) Handel's Messiah is a great example of text painting: "Every Valley..Shall the Crooked Be Made Straight" has the bass wandering over long melismas denoting peaks and valleys in long phrases; other arias have angels flutter away with high trills after their pronouncements). My best example in the St. Matthew Passion was the dragging of the cross by Jesus to Golgotha, where the Ka-Thump! Ka-Thump! rhythm in the music depicted the cross as it was painfully dragged up steps---it was truly heartbreaking. Overall, what a wonderful, beautiful work of art. In college I wrote a paper on the St. Matthew Passion (we were required to submit two pages, but I wrote 45 pages, because I was so in love with this thing), and the opening: the chorus inviting us to hear the story of Jesus' execution, still makes me cry. That being said, I'm not religious. Such is the power of this great musical work.
About the book itself, sadly, I am left with something missing. It was a beautiful book and a good effort, but it just didn't ring my bell. Thanks for trying, Mr. Runcie. A greater connection with the child's appreciation of the brilliant, heartfelt angst of Bach's work would have helped me appreciate this book more. I did not find that---perhaps it was a failure on my part. Best wishes for your future ventures.
I am so grateful I am not living in Leipzig in 1729!!! Death came quickly and unexpectedly, especially for young children and babies. There was no understanding of nutrition, disease control, or hygiene. There was food scarcity, witch-burning and horrendous, torturous executions encouraging mob violence, and there was a reactive, overarching belief that life was suffering, but somehow a reward in heaven would recompense this. There was heartfelt hatred of other religions and denominations, and a heavy reliance on literal Scripture to uplift one in this harsh culture: again, mostly relying on a better outcome in heaven. As my music history teacher said, the Church was "the greatest show on earth"---a place where you could forget your troubles (fall asleep, read a paper, etc.). It was a day off from arduous work. A place where you could feel safe, and maybe choose to hear long, droning sermons and some beautiful music.
What a horrendous environment to live in. And yet, this culture promoted virtue, love, forgiveness (only if you were a member of the Protestant faith), and weirdly, excellence in music. Who knew?
In our American culture we are overindulgent, have a generally sloppy work ethic, and a comfortable, entertaining life. We eat too much, drink too much, and complain about anything difficult about our lives. The horrendous things in our American culture are hidden away (executions, Guantanamo, the outrageous abuse of families trying to immigrate to the U.S., racism, child abuse, misogyny) and so en masse we are not challenged with the painful inequities that the people of Leipzig had to endure in the 18th century. We simply just switch the channel, and all is good. We live in a bubble of opulence.
But somehow, out of the extremely difficult living conditions in the 18th century, incredible beauty erupted that still resonates 3 centuries later. Why?
Do we have anything in our culture that can compare with that?
Please, if you want to listen to the St. Matthew Passion, take the time to learn about "text painting". It will enhance your appreciation of the genius of J.S.Bach. (I tried to find a good YouTube reference to this subject, but was disappointed.) Handel's Messiah is a great example of text painting: "Every Valley..Shall the Crooked Be Made Straight" has the bass wandering over long melismas denoting peaks and valleys in long phrases; other arias have angels flutter away with high trills after their pronouncements). My best example in the St. Matthew Passion was the dragging of the cross by Jesus to Golgotha, where the Ka-Thump! Ka-Thump! rhythm in the music depicted the cross as it was painfully dragged up steps---it was truly heartbreaking. Overall, what a wonderful, beautiful work of art. In college I wrote a paper on the St. Matthew Passion (we were required to submit two pages, but I wrote 45 pages, because I was so in love with this thing), and the opening: the chorus inviting us to hear the story of Jesus' execution, still makes me cry. That being said, I'm not religious. Such is the power of this great musical work.
About the book itself, sadly, I am left with something missing. It was a beautiful book and a good effort, but it just didn't ring my bell. Thanks for trying, Mr. Runcie. A greater connection with the child's appreciation of the brilliant, heartfelt angst of Bach's work would have helped me appreciate this book more. I did not find that---perhaps it was a failure on my part. Best wishes for your future ventures.
January 18, 2022
I thought The Great Passion was very good in many ways, but it did drag a little in places.
Set mainly in 1727, this is the story of Stefan Silbermann, a young boy soprano whose mother has recently died, who is sent away to school in Leipzig with Johann Sebastian Bach. Narrated by Stefan himself, we hear of his grief at his loss, his loneliness at school and the bullying he receives, not least because of his red hair and his musical excellence. Eventually taken in by the Bach family, there follows a study especially of Bach and his wife Ann Magdalena; of Bach’s deep, unshakeable faith and his expression of it through music, and the family’s response to a grief of their own. There is also a fine background of life in Lutheran Leipzig and a good deal of theological discussion (which Anna Magdalena calls Bach’ sermonising), culminating in the composition and performance of the masterpiece that is the St. Matthew Passion.
Much of the first part of the book is excellent. Stefan’s situation and state of mind are humanely and convincingly drawn. The juxtaposition of both the joy and struggle of becoming a real musician with the harshness of much of the rest of life is very effective and James Runcie writes very insightfully about the music itself. There is a touching infatuation by Stefan with one of Bach’s daughters (which may be a play on the book’s title). There were some longeurs in the middle, though; Bach’s sermonising did get a bit much at times and I felt that while Runcie knows a great deal about the cantatas which Bach wrote for each Sunday service and gave a good account of what each set text really meant, they did turn into a bit of a procession. So much so that when we arrived at the sublime Ich Habe Genug, including a moving account of why it was chosen for one of the singers, what should have been a profound moment just felt a bit flat.
That said, I thought the account of the composition, preparation and performance of the Passion itself was excellent. I am no Bach expert, but I have loved his music for decades and know a bit about it; this seemed to me to be a very knowledgeable, moving and heartfelt exploration of one of music’s greatest achievements.
So, I thought this was good but not perfect. I think you need to have an interest in music, including in the details of performance, and in the history of religious thought; I do (especially in the former); I enjoyed the book and I can recommend it.
(My thanks to Bloomsbury for an ARC via NetGalley.)
Set mainly in 1727, this is the story of Stefan Silbermann, a young boy soprano whose mother has recently died, who is sent away to school in Leipzig with Johann Sebastian Bach. Narrated by Stefan himself, we hear of his grief at his loss, his loneliness at school and the bullying he receives, not least because of his red hair and his musical excellence. Eventually taken in by the Bach family, there follows a study especially of Bach and his wife Ann Magdalena; of Bach’s deep, unshakeable faith and his expression of it through music, and the family’s response to a grief of their own. There is also a fine background of life in Lutheran Leipzig and a good deal of theological discussion (which Anna Magdalena calls Bach’ sermonising), culminating in the composition and performance of the masterpiece that is the St. Matthew Passion.
Much of the first part of the book is excellent. Stefan’s situation and state of mind are humanely and convincingly drawn. The juxtaposition of both the joy and struggle of becoming a real musician with the harshness of much of the rest of life is very effective and James Runcie writes very insightfully about the music itself. There is a touching infatuation by Stefan with one of Bach’s daughters (which may be a play on the book’s title). There were some longeurs in the middle, though; Bach’s sermonising did get a bit much at times and I felt that while Runcie knows a great deal about the cantatas which Bach wrote for each Sunday service and gave a good account of what each set text really meant, they did turn into a bit of a procession. So much so that when we arrived at the sublime Ich Habe Genug, including a moving account of why it was chosen for one of the singers, what should have been a profound moment just felt a bit flat.
That said, I thought the account of the composition, preparation and performance of the Passion itself was excellent. I am no Bach expert, but I have loved his music for decades and know a bit about it; this seemed to me to be a very knowledgeable, moving and heartfelt exploration of one of music’s greatest achievements.
So, I thought this was good but not perfect. I think you need to have an interest in music, including in the details of performance, and in the history of religious thought; I do (especially in the former); I enjoyed the book and I can recommend it.
(My thanks to Bloomsbury for an ARC via NetGalley.)
June 6, 2024
I received this book as a part of a Goodreads giveaway. I enjoyed the first half, but it really started to drag as time went on.
If you’re a red head who likes historical fiction, understands music, and wants to burn the earth to punish those who bully red heads, you’ll like this
If you’re a red head who likes historical fiction, understands music, and wants to burn the earth to punish those who bully red heads, you’ll like this
April 4, 2022
First sentence: There are gaps of time into which we sometimes fall, when the pattern of our days is suspended. It happens when there is a birth or a death, an arrival or a departure, the moments either side of it becoming forms of descent and recovery, when we do not know quite what to do or how long this unexpected bewilderment will last. In general, I prefer not to talk of those years, now that my hair is thinned and grey, but once people discover how well I knew the family, they question what it must have been like to be amongst the first to sing Bach’s music.
Set in Leipzig, Germany, in 1727/28, The Great Passion is a historical novel about Johann Sebastian Bach's writing of St. Matthew's Passion. The protagonist is a young musician, Stefan Silbermann, who is studying under the Cantor (aka Bach). The book chronicles his time at school--for better or worse. He's mourning the loss of his mother and struggling to make friends with his classmates. But his time with Bach and his family help him make peace and find his voice.
I love, love, love, LOVE this novel. I love it because it is beautifully written. It is such an incredible read. Amazing narrative style. I do recommend listening to Bach's St. Matthew's passion--either in German or English. You can find it easily online to stream. (Several different recordings are found on Spotify.)
Favorite quotes:
We may travel through the valley of the shadow of death, but how we live is what matters, don’t you think? We have to make full use of the opportunities and talents that God has given us. Do not forget the Parable of the Talents. It commands us to work.
I’ll tell you a secret, Monsieur Silbermann. Everyone, no matter who they are in life, feels alone. We are on our own and we are all afraid.’
‘You think that’s true?’
‘I know it is. We just have to accept it and live through it.’
We cannot understand light without darkness, joy without pain, peace without war, love without hatred, beauty without ugliness or youth without age. We only know the best by experiencing the worst. We understand life because of death. We can only be reborn once we die.
You must love the Lord as boldly as you can,’ he told her. ‘Then you will have no fear. Remember Luther. “The smaller the love the greater the fear.”
I even wondered if it was too much to bear, to keep coming back to the loss, even in music, but one thing the Cantor taught me was that, as well as practising new pieces, I could apply our recent experience and understanding to the preludes and chorales I had played in the past. They were old acquaintances, he told me, friends who would never disappoint. I could revisit them and see them in the light of any greater maturity or wisdom I had acquired, and then add different interpretations and variations.
Our daily task is to remember that all of life is learning.
When we think of the behaviour of other people,’ he began, ‘we have to remember that almost everyone is frightened of something. It might be a confrontation that we are worried about, a piece of work, a continuing illness or the death of a friend, but we should keep in mind that if nothing lasts in this world then the very thing that we dread the most cannot last either. All things must pass. The moment we have feared approaches. It takes place. Then it becomes the past: and only a memory. So, rather than dreading the moment, perhaps we should look forward to the memory of it instead? We must learn to think beyond our fears. Perhaps you are too young to contemplate this, but one day, I promise, you will understand.’
We have to remember that the reverse is true. We are living as long as we are dying. We should not continue in dread. No one can thrive in the shadows.
Perhaps some people are more at home when they play music than they are when they live their life.
If the joy provided by the birth of our Lord is infinite, then so must be the variations, Monsieur Silbermann! There is so much pain and misery in the world that people forget the joy: the sure and certain hope that our sorrows will one day end. Always remember that this is so much greater than the anxieties we face on earth!’
He struck out a few phrases on his own to show me what he meant. ‘It will be Lent soon enough, and we will be lost in the winds of winter; but Advent lasts just as long in the year, and its message is eternally optimistic.
We concentrate on what the story means at the same time as telling it. We develop the themes of sacrifice, sorrow and loss, extracting all the pain and all the love so that, when it comes to the end, the congregation understands that there is nothing left to give. Nothing more can be said or sung.’
The Cantor stood by the fire as the wood took. ‘A work that is an act of faith in itself?’
‘We have to make them think that their lives depend on how well they listen. We have to present the hardest and most bitter sorrow anyone has ever known.’
‘And how do we do that?’
‘We set the story in the present. What would the people of Leipzig say if Christ came to us today, and they saw him now, in the town square, or outside the city walls? Would they believe him? Would they follow him? Or would they still crucify him as they have just killed that prisoner we saw beheaded? What happened there was far more violent and prolonged than anything anyone had been expecting. The crowd was volatile, impatient and quick to condemn. Their inhumanity was frightening.
It can’t be a sombre reflection on something that happened long ago. We need agitation, conflict. Perhaps we can even imagine the past and the present speaking to each other: what it meant to those first witnesses to the Passion of our Lord, and what it means to us now: our truth and their truth, how people crucify Christ every day.’
The Cantor let the idea take hold. ‘An opening exordium. A funeral tombeau. Write this down, Monsieur Silbermann. Two choirs. The Old and New Testament.’
‘The Daughters of Zion from the Song of Songs meet the new Christian believers,’ said Picander. ‘We use the chorus in the same way the Greeks did. They can choose to take part, or they can step aside. They act and they commentate. They express their pity, their anger, their fear and their sorrow.’
When Jesus told his followers that one of them was going to betray him, the response, Lord, is it I?, came eleven times, one for each of the disciples apart from Judas. This was followed by a silence. And in this quiet came the terrible realisation that this wasn’t a question that only the disciples could ask. We had to ask it too: Lord, is it I? We were all, equally, responsible.
Set in Leipzig, Germany, in 1727/28, The Great Passion is a historical novel about Johann Sebastian Bach's writing of St. Matthew's Passion. The protagonist is a young musician, Stefan Silbermann, who is studying under the Cantor (aka Bach). The book chronicles his time at school--for better or worse. He's mourning the loss of his mother and struggling to make friends with his classmates. But his time with Bach and his family help him make peace and find his voice.
I love, love, love, LOVE this novel. I love it because it is beautifully written. It is such an incredible read. Amazing narrative style. I do recommend listening to Bach's St. Matthew's passion--either in German or English. You can find it easily online to stream. (Several different recordings are found on Spotify.)
Favorite quotes:
We may travel through the valley of the shadow of death, but how we live is what matters, don’t you think? We have to make full use of the opportunities and talents that God has given us. Do not forget the Parable of the Talents. It commands us to work.
I’ll tell you a secret, Monsieur Silbermann. Everyone, no matter who they are in life, feels alone. We are on our own and we are all afraid.’
‘You think that’s true?’
‘I know it is. We just have to accept it and live through it.’
We cannot understand light without darkness, joy without pain, peace without war, love without hatred, beauty without ugliness or youth without age. We only know the best by experiencing the worst. We understand life because of death. We can only be reborn once we die.
You must love the Lord as boldly as you can,’ he told her. ‘Then you will have no fear. Remember Luther. “The smaller the love the greater the fear.”
I even wondered if it was too much to bear, to keep coming back to the loss, even in music, but one thing the Cantor taught me was that, as well as practising new pieces, I could apply our recent experience and understanding to the preludes and chorales I had played in the past. They were old acquaintances, he told me, friends who would never disappoint. I could revisit them and see them in the light of any greater maturity or wisdom I had acquired, and then add different interpretations and variations.
Our daily task is to remember that all of life is learning.
When we think of the behaviour of other people,’ he began, ‘we have to remember that almost everyone is frightened of something. It might be a confrontation that we are worried about, a piece of work, a continuing illness or the death of a friend, but we should keep in mind that if nothing lasts in this world then the very thing that we dread the most cannot last either. All things must pass. The moment we have feared approaches. It takes place. Then it becomes the past: and only a memory. So, rather than dreading the moment, perhaps we should look forward to the memory of it instead? We must learn to think beyond our fears. Perhaps you are too young to contemplate this, but one day, I promise, you will understand.’
We have to remember that the reverse is true. We are living as long as we are dying. We should not continue in dread. No one can thrive in the shadows.
Perhaps some people are more at home when they play music than they are when they live their life.
If the joy provided by the birth of our Lord is infinite, then so must be the variations, Monsieur Silbermann! There is so much pain and misery in the world that people forget the joy: the sure and certain hope that our sorrows will one day end. Always remember that this is so much greater than the anxieties we face on earth!’
He struck out a few phrases on his own to show me what he meant. ‘It will be Lent soon enough, and we will be lost in the winds of winter; but Advent lasts just as long in the year, and its message is eternally optimistic.
We concentrate on what the story means at the same time as telling it. We develop the themes of sacrifice, sorrow and loss, extracting all the pain and all the love so that, when it comes to the end, the congregation understands that there is nothing left to give. Nothing more can be said or sung.’
The Cantor stood by the fire as the wood took. ‘A work that is an act of faith in itself?’
‘We have to make them think that their lives depend on how well they listen. We have to present the hardest and most bitter sorrow anyone has ever known.’
‘And how do we do that?’
‘We set the story in the present. What would the people of Leipzig say if Christ came to us today, and they saw him now, in the town square, or outside the city walls? Would they believe him? Would they follow him? Or would they still crucify him as they have just killed that prisoner we saw beheaded? What happened there was far more violent and prolonged than anything anyone had been expecting. The crowd was volatile, impatient and quick to condemn. Their inhumanity was frightening.
It can’t be a sombre reflection on something that happened long ago. We need agitation, conflict. Perhaps we can even imagine the past and the present speaking to each other: what it meant to those first witnesses to the Passion of our Lord, and what it means to us now: our truth and their truth, how people crucify Christ every day.’
The Cantor let the idea take hold. ‘An opening exordium. A funeral tombeau. Write this down, Monsieur Silbermann. Two choirs. The Old and New Testament.’
‘The Daughters of Zion from the Song of Songs meet the new Christian believers,’ said Picander. ‘We use the chorus in the same way the Greeks did. They can choose to take part, or they can step aside. They act and they commentate. They express their pity, their anger, their fear and their sorrow.’
When Jesus told his followers that one of them was going to betray him, the response, Lord, is it I?, came eleven times, one for each of the disciples apart from Judas. This was followed by a silence. And in this quiet came the terrible realisation that this wasn’t a question that only the disciples could ask. We had to ask it too: Lord, is it I? We were all, equally, responsible.
October 22, 2025
Given the important place Bach's music has in my life, I approached this novel with a little trepidation: would it do justice to his stature as a composer, while also breathing life into him as a human being? I soon realised I was in safe hands. Runcie's Bach has the boundless energy, inventiveness and intellect that we hear in his music, but we also see how all this is rooted in his compassion, his faith, and most particularly, the grief he carries around at the loss of his first wife and several of his children. Grief is shown to be the inevitable companion of love, and out of both love and grief come the emotional range and depth of Bach's music.
This Bach is no saint. His superhuman work ethic and determination to push himself - and others - beyond the frontiers of what seems possible make him difficult to live with at times. Patience is not one of his virtues. Yet rather than dwell on the human cost of Bach's achievement, as another author might have chosen to do, Runcie instead shows him as an inspirational figure, pushing his performers beyond what they thought were the limits of their abilities, exhorting them to share his vision and in doing so, to grasp their full God-given potential.
The novel is particularly successful in extracting Bach from the ivory tower in which we might imagine him and rooting him firmly in his time and place. He is referred to mostly as "the Cantor", stressing his role as the leader of the singing in Leipzig's St Thomas Church, rather than our modern idea of him as a composer. He is surrounded by an adoring (and adored) family, including his musically talented and almost perpetually pregnant second wife, Anna Magdalena. He is fond of sermonising, but he also likes horseplay with his younger children. He is an exceptional human being, but he is still human.
There is one moment near the end of the book I found particularly moving, after the successful first performance of the St Matthew Passion, when he removes his wig and rubs his hands over his scalp and his unshaven cheeks. Suddenly he changes from the bewigged figure of legend to a man in his forties, as I am now, tired after a long day's work. But of course, rest is out of the question. "Nothing is ever finished," he says, "otherwise, why continue?” By returning the great composer to a human scale, Runcie does not diminish our sense of his achievement - quite the contrary. With insight and imagination he fills in the gaps between the known facts of Bach’s life and his music to create a believable portrait that is respectful but also refreshing.
This Bach is no saint. His superhuman work ethic and determination to push himself - and others - beyond the frontiers of what seems possible make him difficult to live with at times. Patience is not one of his virtues. Yet rather than dwell on the human cost of Bach's achievement, as another author might have chosen to do, Runcie instead shows him as an inspirational figure, pushing his performers beyond what they thought were the limits of their abilities, exhorting them to share his vision and in doing so, to grasp their full God-given potential.
The novel is particularly successful in extracting Bach from the ivory tower in which we might imagine him and rooting him firmly in his time and place. He is referred to mostly as "the Cantor", stressing his role as the leader of the singing in Leipzig's St Thomas Church, rather than our modern idea of him as a composer. He is surrounded by an adoring (and adored) family, including his musically talented and almost perpetually pregnant second wife, Anna Magdalena. He is fond of sermonising, but he also likes horseplay with his younger children. He is an exceptional human being, but he is still human.
There is one moment near the end of the book I found particularly moving, after the successful first performance of the St Matthew Passion, when he removes his wig and rubs his hands over his scalp and his unshaven cheeks. Suddenly he changes from the bewigged figure of legend to a man in his forties, as I am now, tired after a long day's work. But of course, rest is out of the question. "Nothing is ever finished," he says, "otherwise, why continue?” By returning the great composer to a human scale, Runcie does not diminish our sense of his achievement - quite the contrary. With insight and imagination he fills in the gaps between the known facts of Bach’s life and his music to create a believable portrait that is respectful but also refreshing.
September 9, 2022
I think maybe I was just expecting too much of this book, or hoping for it to be something different from what it actually turned out to be, but most of this really wasn’t good.
I loved a lot of the parts involving Bach himself and his attitude towards music-making, and the actual section (the final 50-60 pages or so) that went over the rehearsal and eventual performance of the St Matthew Passion itself was really good — so good I had tears in my eyes. It was an amazing dive into what might go on inside an incredible composer’s head, and I felt like I was actually in St Thomas’ church at the time it was first performed, feeling everything Bach poured into this composition, and I came away from the book really wanting to listen to it.
It’s a shame about the rest of the book around it, really — i.e. the first 200 pages and the last 5-10, of 260 pages total. I think the book’s choice of narrator — an 11-year-old boy with all the typical little-boy flaws and jealousies etc. — was a real miss, and I found myself entirely uninterested in his story and ramblings. It completely ruined the majority of the book for me, and I only struggled on because I wanted to get to the eponymous section, which was way too long in coming.
It should’ve been a short story or novella, and then for me it would have been perfect. But it was padded out to novel length, which for me did nothing whatsoever for the actual good parts of this story.
A real shame, but I don’t regret reading it, because the good bits were SO good. The ratio of good bits to bad, though, were a real disappointment for me.
I loved a lot of the parts involving Bach himself and his attitude towards music-making, and the actual section (the final 50-60 pages or so) that went over the rehearsal and eventual performance of the St Matthew Passion itself was really good — so good I had tears in my eyes. It was an amazing dive into what might go on inside an incredible composer’s head, and I felt like I was actually in St Thomas’ church at the time it was first performed, feeling everything Bach poured into this composition, and I came away from the book really wanting to listen to it.
It’s a shame about the rest of the book around it, really — i.e. the first 200 pages and the last 5-10, of 260 pages total. I think the book’s choice of narrator — an 11-year-old boy with all the typical little-boy flaws and jealousies etc. — was a real miss, and I found myself entirely uninterested in his story and ramblings. It completely ruined the majority of the book for me, and I only struggled on because I wanted to get to the eponymous section, which was way too long in coming.
It should’ve been a short story or novella, and then for me it would have been perfect. But it was padded out to novel length, which for me did nothing whatsoever for the actual good parts of this story.
A real shame, but I don’t regret reading it, because the good bits were SO good. The ratio of good bits to bad, though, were a real disappointment for me.
October 14, 2024
The Great Passion is a close look at the life of Johann Sebastian Bach through the eyes of a choirboy who becomes a friend of the family. It is a tale of grief, of beauty made from sorrow. Runcie did an amazing job of bringing the setting and time period to life without showing off research. Despite the rather brief length, this novel is dense but well-paced. It always has a sense of the season (liturgical and natural) and the characters are memorable.
I find myself wanting to get my own copy to re-read during Holy Week, before listening to the St Matthew Passion. I wouldn't be surprised if my rating went up, too! I also want to recommend this to the choristers in my life--I'm sure there's much I missed, not being very musical, but I enjoyed the discussions of Lutheran theology and the depiction of religion in the life of Bach and his family.
Content warnings: vivid, unsettling, and lengthy depiction of a botched execution; antisemitism (portrayed only in the way accurate to the characters of their time, not gratuitous); bullying and maltreatment at school, sometimes in detail; death of a young child
I find myself wanting to get my own copy to re-read during Holy Week, before listening to the St Matthew Passion. I wouldn't be surprised if my rating went up, too! I also want to recommend this to the choristers in my life--I'm sure there's much I missed, not being very musical, but I enjoyed the discussions of Lutheran theology and the depiction of religion in the life of Bach and his family.
Content warnings: vivid, unsettling, and lengthy depiction of a botched execution; antisemitism (portrayed only in the way accurate to the characters of their time, not gratuitous); bullying and maltreatment at school, sometimes in detail; death of a young child
July 2, 2023
There are so many beautiful passages in this book. I loved getting a glimpse of Bach’s life and how his faith touched everything he did.
July 28, 2022
4.5 stars rounding up. This is the third memory novel I have read this summer that explores a brief-yet-charged-with-meaning time in a young man’s life. The first was The Go-Between by L.P. Hartley and the second was A Month in the Country by J.L. Carr. I love the structure of this kind of novel that starts in the narrator’s present, goes back in time to childhood or young adulthood, and then returns to the present day. There is so much to explore: innocence and maturity, childhood and adulthood, the nature of time, and the inevitability of change and loss.
The Great Passion is the story of Stefan Silbermann who comes from a family who makes organs in 18th century Saxony in Germany. When the story opens, Stefan is 37 and is an organ maker in the German town of Freiberg. He has just received news that his old teacher from his year of schooling in Leipzig is dead and his trip to the funeral takes him and us down memory lane to 23 years before. From there, the rest of the story, except for the last chapter, is from 14-year-old Stefan’s perspective as he leaves his family home after his mother’s death to receive schooling and musical training in Leipzig. His music teacher, called by his title of the Cantor throughout the novel, is none other than Johann Sebastian Bach.
There is nothing like a novel to make a historical character alive. Truly in my mind Bach was a stout old guy in an elaborate wig. His music was somehow detached from his actual personhood. But wow, this book brings Bach to life. I don’t know much about this time period in Europe so it took me a bit to get my bearings in Stefan and Bach’s world. Bach’s role as Cantor had him composing music for worship services and he took church music Seriously. I love how this novel shows Bach as a devout man of faith who tries with his music to proclaim the glory of God. There is a LOT about music in this book (of course) and a lot of it went over my head, I’m sure, but it is also beautifully woven into the story. The local church and its very Scripturally based music is very much at the heart of the story.
Stefan begins to take organ lessons with Bach. Bach discovers that he also has a beautiful soprano voice and so Stefan begins to sing in the church choir. Bach has intensely high standards and pushes Stefan to become a better musician. The backdrop of the relationship between Stefan and Bach is Stefan’s miserable experience living at the school and later his time living with Bach’s family. At this time, Bach was married for a second time to a younger woman named Anna Magdalena. In Bach’s household are four children from Bach’s first marriage, his first wife’s spinster sister, and the four young children from his second marriage with Lena. Stefan (an only child) becomes the observant outsider in this boisterous family and develops a special friendship with Bach’s eldest child Catharina.
Gosh, this novel has so much packed into it, I feel like my words are getting all jumbled. I may come back and revise. 😅
What I think this book does so well is explore the connection between grief and music. Stefan is grieving his mother’s death. Bach, his sister-in-law, and his older four children are grieving Maria Barbara’s death. Later in the story, Bach’s young child from his marriage with Anna Magdalena dies of fever. There is another musical family in town that loses its wife and mother. Death was such a constant part of life for so many years of history. Until COVID, we moderns have largely been insulated from the kind of relentless grief that people in Bach’s day experienced. And yet grief is universal. Every human is touched by it multiple times throughout life. I read about the author on Wikipedia and he lost his wife in 2020. Art and music and story are powerful mediums for expressing and exploring grief and this book fleshes out the connections between these in many ways. Too many to name.
The final part of the book culminates in the composing and performing of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion on Good Friday and explores Jesus as “a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief” and the part that grieving boys and men have in bringing the music to glorious life. It is so moving to read.
Just like The Go-Between and A Month in the Country with their momentous summer months, the brief year that Stefan spends in Leipzig is life changing and in some ways healing, but it is not a wholly happy ending. Grief remains though it eases and relationships that are precious are lost to time and to change. The tension remains between the precious moment that is charged with meaning and the years that slip through our fingers. Bach doesn’t shy away from this tension (he seems to charge at it head on) and by the end of the novel, I believe Stefan’s healing is related to his own ability to bear the tension.
The Great Passion is the story of Stefan Silbermann who comes from a family who makes organs in 18th century Saxony in Germany. When the story opens, Stefan is 37 and is an organ maker in the German town of Freiberg. He has just received news that his old teacher from his year of schooling in Leipzig is dead and his trip to the funeral takes him and us down memory lane to 23 years before. From there, the rest of the story, except for the last chapter, is from 14-year-old Stefan’s perspective as he leaves his family home after his mother’s death to receive schooling and musical training in Leipzig. His music teacher, called by his title of the Cantor throughout the novel, is none other than Johann Sebastian Bach.
There is nothing like a novel to make a historical character alive. Truly in my mind Bach was a stout old guy in an elaborate wig. His music was somehow detached from his actual personhood. But wow, this book brings Bach to life. I don’t know much about this time period in Europe so it took me a bit to get my bearings in Stefan and Bach’s world. Bach’s role as Cantor had him composing music for worship services and he took church music Seriously. I love how this novel shows Bach as a devout man of faith who tries with his music to proclaim the glory of God. There is a LOT about music in this book (of course) and a lot of it went over my head, I’m sure, but it is also beautifully woven into the story. The local church and its very Scripturally based music is very much at the heart of the story.
Stefan begins to take organ lessons with Bach. Bach discovers that he also has a beautiful soprano voice and so Stefan begins to sing in the church choir. Bach has intensely high standards and pushes Stefan to become a better musician. The backdrop of the relationship between Stefan and Bach is Stefan’s miserable experience living at the school and later his time living with Bach’s family. At this time, Bach was married for a second time to a younger woman named Anna Magdalena. In Bach’s household are four children from Bach’s first marriage, his first wife’s spinster sister, and the four young children from his second marriage with Lena. Stefan (an only child) becomes the observant outsider in this boisterous family and develops a special friendship with Bach’s eldest child Catharina.
Gosh, this novel has so much packed into it, I feel like my words are getting all jumbled. I may come back and revise. 😅
What I think this book does so well is explore the connection between grief and music. Stefan is grieving his mother’s death. Bach, his sister-in-law, and his older four children are grieving Maria Barbara’s death. Later in the story, Bach’s young child from his marriage with Anna Magdalena dies of fever. There is another musical family in town that loses its wife and mother. Death was such a constant part of life for so many years of history. Until COVID, we moderns have largely been insulated from the kind of relentless grief that people in Bach’s day experienced. And yet grief is universal. Every human is touched by it multiple times throughout life. I read about the author on Wikipedia and he lost his wife in 2020. Art and music and story are powerful mediums for expressing and exploring grief and this book fleshes out the connections between these in many ways. Too many to name.
The final part of the book culminates in the composing and performing of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion on Good Friday and explores Jesus as “a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief” and the part that grieving boys and men have in bringing the music to glorious life. It is so moving to read.
Just like The Go-Between and A Month in the Country with their momentous summer months, the brief year that Stefan spends in Leipzig is life changing and in some ways healing, but it is not a wholly happy ending. Grief remains though it eases and relationships that are precious are lost to time and to change. The tension remains between the precious moment that is charged with meaning and the years that slip through our fingers. Bach doesn’t shy away from this tension (he seems to charge at it head on) and by the end of the novel, I believe Stefan’s healing is related to his own ability to bear the tension.
August 6, 2023
Tip for the re-read: take it very slow, and listen as you go along to all the music they play and mention, both in a focused way and also as you read. I cottoned on rather late to that on this first reading!
At the level of the sentence: often very fine.
At the level of the thought and sentiment: both profound and platitudinous, often befitting the moment and character uttering it.
At the level of the scene: some truly fabulous moments (in the house of the kindly oboist; Silbermann’s organ lessons with the Cantor; Telemann and his trophy wife come to dinner, etc.)
At the level of story and construction: flat, with almost no discernible arc and surprisingly little narrative drama for all the passion and incident. Several chapters end with unnecessary false notes, sentences that try to whip up tension (p.216) or that culminate in a surprisingly trite sentiment (p.180), which could have been left out.
As for world-building: splendid, with all the grime and energy, tenderness, grumpiness, detail and musicality of the Bach household, of the other performers, the school, the choir, the church. Some of the town of Leipzig and its rural environs also comes across nicely.
As for characters: vivid, believable portraits of the shy and the gregarious, the pondering and the enigmatic — I loved the elder Stolle, whose grief and development was actually far more important than that of the Cantor (whatever all the blurbs say, misleading as usual…), and yet what a Bach! (Can’t help but wonder about the real man and the faithfulness of Runcie’s version, all the while not-so-secretly hoping that he was really like that!)
As for theology: almost flawless in its expression of a serious Christian view of life and death — an 18th century Lutheranism well rendered for a contemporary audience, if we have ears to hear it, and a vital shot in the arm for I also loved the way that Bach et al (Runcie!?) blended the aesthetic, the doctrinal and the ethical, trying to do in their conversations and exhortations what the Matthäuspassion (and of course so much of JSB’s oeuvre) does in music.
Was this “just” a beautiful novel of ideas? The dialogue rarely moves things on, and was frequently an excuse for sermonising, something many of the characters even acknowledged! And yet much of this sermonising is simply good and true, hard or awkward though it might be to hear. So, contrary to my expectations (perhaps partly affected by hearing a bit about the author’s Grantchester mystery novels) The Great Passion has not only delighted me as an artistic achievement, it has also nurtured my faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Johann Sebastian Bach.
At the level of the sentence: often very fine.
At the level of the thought and sentiment: both profound and platitudinous, often befitting the moment and character uttering it.
At the level of the scene: some truly fabulous moments (in the house of the kindly oboist; Silbermann’s organ lessons with the Cantor; Telemann and his trophy wife come to dinner, etc.)
At the level of story and construction: flat, with almost no discernible arc and surprisingly little narrative drama for all the passion and incident. Several chapters end with unnecessary false notes, sentences that try to whip up tension (p.216) or that culminate in a surprisingly trite sentiment (p.180), which could have been left out.
As for world-building: splendid, with all the grime and energy, tenderness, grumpiness, detail and musicality of the Bach household, of the other performers, the school, the choir, the church. Some of the town of Leipzig and its rural environs also comes across nicely.
As for characters: vivid, believable portraits of the shy and the gregarious, the pondering and the enigmatic — I loved the elder Stolle, whose grief and development was actually far more important than that of the Cantor (whatever all the blurbs say, misleading as usual…), and yet what a Bach! (Can’t help but wonder about the real man and the faithfulness of Runcie’s version, all the while not-so-secretly hoping that he was really like that!)
As for theology: almost flawless in its expression of a serious Christian view of life and death — an 18th century Lutheranism well rendered for a contemporary audience, if we have ears to hear it, and a vital shot in the arm for I also loved the way that Bach et al (Runcie!?) blended the aesthetic, the doctrinal and the ethical, trying to do in their conversations and exhortations what the Matthäuspassion (and of course so much of JSB’s oeuvre) does in music.
Was this “just” a beautiful novel of ideas? The dialogue rarely moves things on, and was frequently an excuse for sermonising, something many of the characters even acknowledged! And yet much of this sermonising is simply good and true, hard or awkward though it might be to hear. So, contrary to my expectations (perhaps partly affected by hearing a bit about the author’s Grantchester mystery novels) The Great Passion has not only delighted me as an artistic achievement, it has also nurtured my faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Johann Sebastian Bach.
November 29, 2021
'The Great Passion' is a tribute to Bach, clad in the touching story of a grieving, bullied boy, who finds refuge in the composer's home. As its reader I became acquainted with Bach's prolific genius and life in the early 1700s in Germany. The author successfully depicts the circumstances of a large and blended family, headed by a benign despot and genius. The novel's protagonist, Stefan Silbermann, recently bereaved of his mother and cruelly bullied at the boarding school for his red hair, becomes a protégé of Bach's due to his angelic soprano and willingness to work hard. Enriched and matured, Stefan leaves Leipzig and the Bachs at the end of the school year, but not before the St. Matthew passion is completed and performed.
I was impressed by the author's detailed research into and knowledge of Bach's work, and the manner in which he brought the era to life. The latter is well illustrated by the hollow, but realistic consequence of Bach's death: the family no longer has a home, has to disperse, and must find a means to survive.
Although I found the content of the novel interesting, I struggled with its style. Dialogue-heavy, it initially conveyed an appropriate sense of rushed urgency, but became tedious to read as it persisted and, I felt, served to dimish character development. I could also imagine that, like myself, many readers might struggle to make sense of many of the Latin phrases and German song titles that are not always translated, or inadequately so.
Overall, I found the book worth reading and thank NetGalley and the publishers for the eARC that allowed me to write this unbiased and voluntary review.
I was impressed by the author's detailed research into and knowledge of Bach's work, and the manner in which he brought the era to life. The latter is well illustrated by the hollow, but realistic consequence of Bach's death: the family no longer has a home, has to disperse, and must find a means to survive.
Although I found the content of the novel interesting, I struggled with its style. Dialogue-heavy, it initially conveyed an appropriate sense of rushed urgency, but became tedious to read as it persisted and, I felt, served to dimish character development. I could also imagine that, like myself, many readers might struggle to make sense of many of the Latin phrases and German song titles that are not always translated, or inadequately so.
Overall, I found the book worth reading and thank NetGalley and the publishers for the eARC that allowed me to write this unbiased and voluntary review.
August 2, 2022
The year is 1727. Thirteen-year-old Stefan Silbermann’s mother has recently died, and his father decides to send him to boarding school in Leipzig. At school, the other boys bully Stefan for his red hair. Immediately, a knife that his father gave him is stolen. Another boy named Stolle is especially unkind.
When the headmaster punishes him unfairly, Stefan decides to run away from school. But he has some luck. The music teacher at his school, and Cantor of the associated St. Thomas’ Church, is none other than Johann Sebastian Bach. Bach has noticed Stefan’s musical talent and takes him under his wing, to the extent of allowing Stefan to live with him and his large family.
Over the course of almost a year, Stefan will fall in love, engage in rivalry with Stolle for the soprano parts in Bach’s chorales, and learn to stand up for himself with the help of a kind oboist. He will also take part in the debut performance of Bach’s Passion chorale. The kindly, brilliant Bach can seem almost a madman in his demands on his singers, but the sublime result is the climax of the book.
This book is a coming-of-age story, but it is also a love song to Bach and to the Passion chorale. It moved a little slow for me, but I think those with a passion for music – particularly choral and organ music – would love this book. It contains a lot of nerdy detail about how organs are built and played and how music is sung; a lot of that went right over my head, but music nerds will appreciate it.
Like my reviews? Check out my blog at http://www.kathrynbashaar.com/blog/
Author of The Saints Mistress https://camcatbooks.com/Books/T/The-S...
When the headmaster punishes him unfairly, Stefan decides to run away from school. But he has some luck. The music teacher at his school, and Cantor of the associated St. Thomas’ Church, is none other than Johann Sebastian Bach. Bach has noticed Stefan’s musical talent and takes him under his wing, to the extent of allowing Stefan to live with him and his large family.
Over the course of almost a year, Stefan will fall in love, engage in rivalry with Stolle for the soprano parts in Bach’s chorales, and learn to stand up for himself with the help of a kind oboist. He will also take part in the debut performance of Bach’s Passion chorale. The kindly, brilliant Bach can seem almost a madman in his demands on his singers, but the sublime result is the climax of the book.
This book is a coming-of-age story, but it is also a love song to Bach and to the Passion chorale. It moved a little slow for me, but I think those with a passion for music – particularly choral and organ music – would love this book. It contains a lot of nerdy detail about how organs are built and played and how music is sung; a lot of that went right over my head, but music nerds will appreciate it.
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Author of The Saints Mistress https://camcatbooks.com/Books/T/The-S...
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