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. 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. 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.

The Great Passion - The Historical Association The Great Passion - The Historical Association

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. Change the plan you will roll onto at any time during your trial by visiting the “Settings & Account” section. What happens at the end of my trial?

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. The other students, jealous of his favored treatment and private tutelage, bully him. Bach takes him into his home where his wife and he are kind. Anna, who is very kind and loving and reminds him of his own mother. Under Bach’s teaching, Stefan’s musical ability and skill improve greatly. And Bach always uses music as a metaphor for God’s love and grace; beautiful lessons abound throughout the book. Bach’s 3 year old daughter died of a fever and Bach thinks it best for Stefan to return to school so his family can grieve alone. Stefan blames himself since he had the fever first and may have infected little Etta. To conjure him as a man, a writer needs to focus very sharply, and, whether in his bestselling Grantchester stories or award-winning documentaries, Runcie is expert at focus… 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

The Great Passion by James Runcie | Waterstones The Great Passion by James Runcie | Waterstones

I guess overall, I liked some aspects of the story and learned something of how Bach made his living as a composer. On the other hand, I really didn't connect with other aspects of the writing and was glad to finish the book. The protagonist of James Runcie's novel, The Great Passion, is an organist and organ builder. The pipe organ has been referred to as the "king of musical instruments" due to its size, complexity and power. Though its structure is similar to that of a piano, it has not one keyboard but as many as seven, plus a pedalboard played with the feet, and sometimes hundreds of "stops" on the console that are manually pulled opened or pushed closed during a piece to add musical effects (e.g., producing a buzzy tone or one that sounds like a bell). A single organ can be comprised of thousands of pipes, and the organ has the largest and oldest repertoire of any instrument in Western music.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. 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...

THE GREAT PASSION | Kirkus Reviews THE GREAT PASSION | Kirkus Reviews

The story is rich in its descriptions of music, devotion to God, and the daily hardships of 18th-century life...A delightful novel filled with warmth, music, and an obvious love of Bach. 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. 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.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.) 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. Runcie’s exceptional seventh novel featuring Sidney Chambers (after 2017’s Sidney Chambers and the Persistence of Love), a prequel, opens with an extended section set during WWII. In 1943, Continue reading »

The Great Passion by James Runcie Book Marks reviews of The Great Passion by James Runcie

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. 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.” A beautifully calibrated novel ... Bach emerges as an intense, flawed, deeply religious man, and through a poignant exploration of grief and love, Runcie brings his glorious music thrillingly to life 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. But if you avoid grief, you will not experience what it means to be human. We can only appreciate what it is to be alive by recognizing what it means when that life is removed from us. OUR WOUNDS GIVE LIFE ITS RICHNESS.

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. 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. 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.