A REFLECTION for classical music lovers. It’s by the distinguished Swedish poet, novelist, and philosopher Lars Gustafsson and comes from his Selected Poems, translated by John Irons ( Bloodaxe Books, £12).

THE SILENCE OF THE WORLD BEFORE BACH

There must have existed a world before

the Trio Sonata in D, a world before the A minor Partita,

but what was that world like?

A Europe of large unresonating spaces

everywhere unknowing instruments,

where Musikalisches Opfer and Wohltemperiertes Klavier

had never passed over a keyboard.

Lonely remote churches

where the soprano voice of the Easter Passion

had never in helpless love twined itself round

the gentler movements of the flute,

gentle expanses of landscape

where only old woodcutters are heard with their axes

the healthy sound of strong dogs in winter

and – like a bell – skates biting into glassy ice;

the swallows swirling in the summer air

the shell that the child listens to

and nowhere Bach nowhere Bach

skating silence of the world before Bach.