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The Great Passion

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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.

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A beautiful tribute to one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written, St Matthew Passion, by Johann Sebastian Bach. Told from the perspective of a 13 year old boy going to the school in Leipzig where “The Cantor” taught music and the boys’ choir, this is a vast exploration of grief, sorrow, and beauty.

I can’t get over this book. I found myself thinking about how sorrow, death, and music are interwoven into the fabric of every life. As a musician myself, I’m stunned how Runcie has captured the essence of the musical phrases and life of Baroque music in writing. It was easy to imagine Bach as my music teacher, just as Stefan struggled with the majestic phrases and intricate pieces he wrote for him.

This is essential reading for any lover of music, but I think it could be a classic novel exploring the perennial themes of grief, love, and beauty through the world of music. Highly, highly recommended.

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I received this book for free from Netgalley. That did not influence this review.

The Great Passion by James Runcie is a newly released historical novel that swept me away.

Sometimes a superb book opens slowly. I have to give it several pages, a chapter, two chapters, before I am caught up. Others have a voice that captures me from the opening words. The Great Passion was one of the latter. The novel drew me in immediately, even though its voice was that of an eighteenth-century man about to indulge in memories of his pre-adolescent self.

The majority of the book is told from the viewpoint of young Stefan Silbermann, a boy whose voice has not yet changed, who sings a beautiful soprano. He is the son of an organ maker from a long line of prestigious organ makers. His mother recently died and his father decides to send him to a music school for boys that is attached to a church, St. Thomas in Leipzig, to further his musical education. This is in preparation for the day when he will take over the family business. Also, sending him away is supposed to help him put aside his grief for his mother.

Stefan spends one year at the school, but experiences so much growth over that year that it seems a small lifetime. The Cantor at the school is Johann Sebastian Bach.

Bach is not named in the novel. He’s referred to as the Cantor. It’s a superb way of placing us back in time to before he was BACH. Not that his talent was not recognized, but his name did not yet have centuries of weight behind it. Keeping him semi-anonymous puts us on a more contemporary footing.

The year of this novel (1727?) is the year that Bach was composing The St. Matthew Passion. And while the storyline culminates in the performance of the Passion, and while the adult Stefan recognizes that this was a pivotal moment in his life and in the history of music, the book is not simply the story of Bach struggling with the composition and ultimately triumphing. The young Stefan experiences the creation of this masterpiece in the context of his own difficult transition from child toward adult. The Passion is both central and peripheral.

With its exquisite prose, the novel is a meditation on death, life, music, religion, and everything in between. Runcie writes with such confidence in his material that there are no false notes. I could hear the language of these deeply religious eighteenth century men and women and feel that I was there, not looking back at them from the distance through a novel. I am non-musical and deeply ignorant about the mechanics of music, and yet I never stumbled over the passages where music was woven into the story. Seamlessly. Detailed without being cumbersome.

There is bullying and kindness, violence and gentleness. Bach is both a temperamental, hard taskmaster and a generous mentor and loving family man. Stefan is a boy on the cusp of manhood and a middle-aged man looking back on a defining year of his life.

This book was not a “page-turner,” but it was hard to put down. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

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I am a great fan of James Runcie’s Sidney Chambers books. Sidney is such a wonderful character and a good, interesting man. I highly recommend the series. Loving those stories as I do, I was delighted to receive an ARC of this novel by Mr. Runcie. Thank you Bloomsbury. (All opinions will be my own.)

The same qualities that flow through the Chambers novels are in play here as well. These include an ability to create well rounded and very human portrayals of the characters. In addition, in this historical novel, Runcie skillfully recreates a time, place and culture. Time is spent in Liepzig, in a rather cold boarding school and in the world of the church and its music. Readers also get to intimately know the Bach family and witness the creation of Bach’s seminal work.

I very much enjoyed this novel and recommend it to those who enjoy the very best quality historical fiction. This book offers insight and heart as readers spend time with one of Bach’s students, with the great man and with his family. There are issues of loss, faith and music in these pages. The book will resonate for readers.

Again, many thanks to Bloomsbury and NetGalley.

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This was a beautiful story….
You don’t need to know anything about 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/4322985392?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1

Also thank you to Netgalley and Bloomsbury USA for the ARC!

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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.


Pub Date: 15 Mar 2022

Many thanks for the ARC provided by Bloomsbury USA / Bloomsbury Publishing

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"From acclaimed bestselling author James Runcie, a meditation on grief and music, told through the story of Bach's writing of the St. Matthew Passion.

In 1727, Stefan Silbermann is a grief-stricken thirteen-year-old, struggling with the death of his mother and his removal to a school in distant Leipzig. 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. 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.

Joyous, revelatory, and deeply moving, The Great Passion is an imaginative tour de force that tells the story of what it was like to sing, play, and hear Bach's music for the very first time."

James Runcie is Bach (I'm sorry I couldn't help myself) with a new, non-Granchester book!

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Stefan Silbermann is sent away to school in 1727 after his mother passes. When he arrives there, he meets the new cantor who is none other the J.S. Bach. Bach quickly realizes this young boy’s talent and takes him under his wing. While he is excelling at school and the Bach family adores Stefan, students become jealous and he is bullied by his classmates.

While Stefan is still reeling from his own loss of his mother, the Bach’s experience a great loss also, that transforms their relationship. Taking place as Bach is writing The Great Passion, Bach writes a vibrant piece of music that Stefan is brought into. He has the great honor and trust of copying his music to paper.

As a music major in college, I gravitated towards this books. Runcie places a lot of details of that time and integrates great musicians perfectly into the story. It is obviously well researched.

This did start a little slower for me, but very much picked up at the end that I actually wanted a little more. I am not sure, if my timing was slightly off for reading this and maybe in a month or so, I would have loved it even more, but it was still a solid read. If you love baroque music or just want to read a good story, then give this one a try.

Thank you NetGalley and Bloomsbury Publishing for an Advanced Reader’s Copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

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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.

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5 "transcendent, breathtaking, astonishing" stars !!

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 my 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..."

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Quite good. You don't have to be a music love to enjoy this. The story is a little uneven, but there isn't any filler. I'll have to circle back to some of Runcie's other books. Recommended.

I really appreciate the free ARC for review!!

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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.

Review originally posted at mysteryandsuspense.com

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'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.

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