A former pop-music critic, Siblin was transported to the eighteenth century when his imagination was captured by a performance of Bach's Six Suites for Solo Cello. He embarked on a journey part historical, part personal, to discover for himself the music that has remained a pillar of the cello repertoire since Pablo Casals recorded the suites in 1936. Siblin traveled to Leipzig looking for traces of the German composer, and to the Catalonian coast of Spain to trace the steps of the suites' first modern master. Included in his thorough research are interviews with cellists such as Mischa Maisky and Anner Bylsma, who describe the complexities of the music and the challenges it presents to the soloist. In Siblin's history of the composer, Bach is far from the stuffy image often applied to classical music; he appears restless, brash, and proud, occasionally landing in jail for upsetting a patron. Siblin's writing is most inspired when describing the life of Casals, showing a genuine affection for the cellist, who, caught in the throes of the Spanish civil war and World War II, used his instrument and the suites as weapons of protest and pleas for peace.
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