The Great Passion

Product Information

Find sources: "Bach: The Great Passion"– news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR ( June 2017) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) 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.

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. 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. I loved this book. Runcie’s description of the familiar music being rehearsed and performed for the first time is extraordinary. It is as though the characters are caught on camera with barely an inkling of the significance of what they are doing, no real idea that this music will live for ever, though they know that it is novel and powerful: “We open in E minor, the key of lamentation. Two orchestras as well as the choirs. . . remember, gentlemen, we open with a dance rhythm. E minor. 12/8 time. . . ‘Come you daughters . . .’” As I “watched” the first rehearsal, I found myself in tears, the opening chorus soaring in my head. 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. The Great Passion is a wonderfully rich, audacious and, to me, surprising novel; surprising because all I have previously read of James Runcie’s work are his Granchester detective novels... On the evidence of these books, I would never have expected anything on the scale and magnificence of The Great Passion…This is a delightful novel, also one which reveals a Germany foreign or, I would think, unknown to most of us. It is a novel which deserves to last and will surely do so. It is surely James Runcie’s masterwork, a novel written with love and understanding. Allan Massie: The ScotsmanSet 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. 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.

The story begins with an 11-year-old narrator, Stefan, who has been suddenly bereaved himself. Stefan’s father is a historical figure. Musical-instrument-maker Gottfried Silbermann, an important figure in the history of the piano, had a genuine connection to Bach, who criticised one of his pianos. When Silbermann altered it, Bach was the first to play it in a concert. But in Runcie’s novel, Gottfried has only two functions. One, to be a famous builder of organs, rather than pianos. The other, to be unfeeling enough to send his son to St Thomas’s choir school in Leipzig immediately after the boy’s mother dies. 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. Set in Leipzig in 1726, it is written as the memoir of Stefan Silberman, an 11-year-old chorister who is studying music at St Thomas’s choir school and encounters Johann Sebastian Bach as “The Cantor”. Stefan is talented, but traumatised by the recent death of his mother, and he is cruelly bullied. Bach: The Great Passion is a 2017 biographical radio play by the English writer James Runcie, dealing with the inception and premiere of the St Matthew Passion. [1] It premiered on BBC Radio 4 on 15 April 2017, with Simon Russell Beale in the title role, directed by Eoin O'Callaghan and produced by Marilyn Imrie. 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...

More from BACH: THE GREAT PASSION

The boarding school is rife with beating and bullying, and Stefan runs away. We first meet Bach through his kindness to this desperately unhappy boy. At this point, Bach is 41, responsible for music in all Leipzig’s churches. As cantor in St Thomas’s church, he teaches at the school and has talent-spotted Stefan’s musicality as a singer. He encourages Stefan to return to school, but invites him to live in his own home. He also asks him, as son of a famous organ builder, to help him inspect a church organ. Alone with Bach, peering at organ pipes, Stefan shyly confesses he misses his mother. “Sometimes,” says the cantor, “I think a man misses his mother his whole life. But we are all orphans before the Lord.” Something is happening, though. In the depths of his loss, the Cantor is writing a new work: 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.

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. 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.’ 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.’Like the St Matthew Passion, this is a novel filled not just with loss and lamentation but with transcendent joy. Runcie’s prose sings. Soli Deo gloria! Saga Magazine 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. 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.