This historical novel by James Runcie covers the period in Leipzig leading up to J.S. Bach's composition of the St. Matthew Passion in 1727. Runcie uses a 13-year-old boy, writing retrospectively from 1750, as narrator. The local color is vaguely interesting, but the Bach character never lifts off the page into the reader's imagination: He is too prone to droning sermonettes and repetitive instructions to singers and musicians.
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