If Bach, let’s say Bach - but it may as well be Mozart or Mendelssohn

(Fanny that is)

or Strauss or Schumann

(Clara that is)

If any of these people - composers

were alive today

can you imagine?

Let’s say Bach - they

(possibly their preferred pronoun)

they may have heard their Brandenburg Concertos maybe three times

in their lifetime

if they were lucky

on a good day

Imagine, if Bach went to Chadstone

if we were to protect them from the assault of the unfamiliar

as time travel would be prone to doing

imagine if

we are tasked with

taking Bach by the hand and leading them into an elevator

Let’s be kind about this - let’s not make muzak of their music

what would it be like

to be at a shopping centre in a tin can with buttons

that travels up and down

to hear your one of your Brandenburg Concertos

piping around you

an orchestra-less orchestra

in a tin-can shuttle?

I think they would faint

have a mild stroke

or assume they were tripping

Today I felled a dead tree

listening to Bach - loudly

on repeat

possibly annoying my neighbours

and I wonder

just wonder

what it would be like for Bach

or any of these composers

to hear their music in such an extraordinary

out-of-their ordinary

context

These rockstars of yore

I reckon they’d be into it - well into it

some of their works are total bangers

and after the shock of the new

they’d be downloading all the various versions from Spotify

and challenging all known copyright laws

to make some justified coin