The Brandenburg Concerto
By Ava Mack
July 15, 2024
July 15, 2024
For Dr. I & JW
I bet Bach would’ve disapproved
but I thoroughly enjoyed it how blasphemously you rifled through the Brandenburg Concerto music gracing us with an improvised & forte Fuck this! Smashing on the harpsichord, tearing at the paper, an empty concert hall just you and me and our dear viola player - laughing through the pain Bach puts us through. The acoustics don’t discriminate between the laughter and the music and between you and me - I think the Brandenburg was better for it. This was years ago now and as vignetted as a dream, but you’ve caught me dreamy now so ask me how I know that language & laughter bent together make a double rainbow - and I’ll tell you. A few months ago the Final Jeopardy! question was this: Composed around 1720, this group of instrumental works was dedicated to a younger brother of Prussian king Frederick I. I laughed and hollered out, What are The Brandenburg Concertos! Of course I knew it. How could I forget it? Incredulous, my husband asked me how I could have possibly have known this? I could only say, I’ve played them which technically is true, but leaves so much of the truth out of it it almost isn’t true. But we were clearing away the dishes dinner almost finished how could I stop and tell him about how we rehearsed it riotous, ridiculous our irreverent little remix the harpsichord & Bach the paper & … how one life dovetails into another how some dreams linger longer in our minds than others - that this is how I know the answer, that this is how I remember? |
Ava Mack (she/her) is a Boston-based poet and writer. She is currently the 2023 Poetry Fellow at The Writers’ Room of Boston and a frequent contributor and award winner on Vocal Media. Her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in Muleskinner Journal, Free the Verse, Paloma Magazine, The Nassau Review, and Chill Mag. She holds a BA and MA in political science from Boston University where she graduated summa cum laude. You can follow her on Instagram @avamariemack.
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Author’s Note:
This is one of the only narrative poems I've ever written. It's a true story. I was playing Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 with two great musicians and mentors (the addressees, Dr. I and JW). There were a few expletives and a lot of laughter. As I've gotten older, I've come to appreciate how rare these moments of joyful creativity can become and how lonely the absence of mentors can feel. However, anything, on any day, a final Jeopardy! question for example, can send memories racing back from hidden depths within us. I'm very interested in memory in my work - how what was seemingly a single moment can unspool into so much more over time, with a dreamlike quality.