The world of classical music was shattered today, like a defective pane of chemically strengthened glass, as historians admitted that superstar Johann Sebastian Bach neither wrote nor sang his own music. Like numerous classical music lip-syncers before him, Mr. Bach was a fraud, a fact exposed after a repository of documents believed to be written in the final hours of his life was discovered.

In the writings, penned on his own personal stationary, Mr. Bach admits the lifelong charade, discloses that he could never actually write music, and expresses guilt that he didn’t credit the true genius behind the majority of his work: a parole officer by trade named Susan Dunderman.

Now understood to be the creative force behind all of Bach’s fugues and most of his oratorios and motets, the public has been scrambling to place a face on the woman who changed classical music forever. Ohio State University music professor and self-proclaimed ‘Baroque-Boy,’ Barty Blarté, is happy that Dunderman’s strange legacy, now known in full detail, will finally be revealed.

“Luckily,” he began, “in addition to the almost near and utter crap contained in that old bat Johann’s feverish ramblings, we also found a rolled-up collection of music reviews he’d kept as a begrudging reminder of his failures. In those reviews we catch a glimpse of the beauty – and sometimes sickness – that enveloped Susan Dunderman.”

The articles focus on a series of events and shows performed in east London during the summer of 1718. 

“On the morning of November 6, 1717, Johann was put into jail for one month courtesy of Prince Wilhelm Ernst of Weimar,” Barty Blarté explained. “Bach was a terrible musician but still sought to make his name in the arts. He largely just got himself into trouble. Deflated but full of energy after a day of failing to learn Three Blind Mice on the trumpet, Johann started following Prince Ernst around town whilst blowing into the trumpet to simulate the sound of flatulence. He was brought to the jail that evening, sentenced before suppertime, and began serving his punishment the next day.”

Blarté paused before adding, “…and he did. Once he was ready for release, Ms. Dunderman was assigned to his case by the magistrate. Susan was an actual troubadour and pianist in her own right, however women in those days were only allowed to communicate in a series of meeps until a nearby man could hear and decipher their needs. The magistrate, sensing the perfect match, ordered the two to work together as a condition of Johann’s parole and further ordered them to ‘have fun witing dose songs you’se twos!’”

And so, upon Johann’s release, the pair became inexorably intertwined. “The duo premiered their first show as a street performance entitled ‘I Tink We Found Some’fing Good’ and were quickly swept up by talent scouts. Within weeks they were headlining the Globe theatre to rave reviews. Finally, Dunderman had the chance to shine.”

Blarté smiled. “Now she could not only express her creativity in song – with Mr. Bach playing her masterpieces on the piano – but could also explore the extreme psychosis that had been woefully infecting her mind. The latter was showcased in the form of b-rated performance art.”

The proof is in the reviews. In one penned by a Ms. Dina Perdue, she confronts the emotion of being front and center in the audience of the Globe at the height of Bach & Susan’s fame.

“Johann was a somber emo-boy,” she gushed, “looking almost annoyed to be on stage. He was a man – a gaunt and dirty man – but somehow still Victorian, with a full powdered face and puffs of lace peeking out from the cuffs of his jacket and breeches. This venerable powerhouse, this diamond in the rough, was then complimented by a woman we now all revere as The Gun Show – whistling along with the music like a mad raven, taunting Mr. Bach awkwardly while boasting a full ten-gallon basket of dead birds on her head, and notably arching her derrière in the finale to fart freely whilst laughing like an old witch as the auditorium filled with a stench this reviewer can only liken to the mustardy gas of a thousand angels in heaven!”

Enraptured by the exotic performers in front of them, people couldn’t help but become ensnared. Another reviewer noted that, “Whilst lively, the street interpretation of B&S’s music is too complicated, too esoteric, too long, and increasingly way too boring. I mean we’ve all heard ‘I am Some’fing Good’ – or whatever – ad nauseam! However, from the moment the candles dimmed and The Gun Show skipped onto stage dressed from head to foot in a full radium body suit – barking like a mad seal and dancing the most complicated ballet routine I’ve ever seen – I knew that the Lord God almighty was allowing me to witness this phantasmagoric event, and that I would never again experience a smell like this!”

After serving his parole, Bach and Dunderman went their separate ways. He went on to record several fugues to low critical regard – as he mostly just hummed like a little girl or cawed loudly like a crow – while Dunderman disguised herself as a man and joined the military to become a little drummer boy. Susan’s dark and sometimes harrowing journey was later memorialized in the song by the same name.

Bach is survived by a slew of straight white men that were talented geniuses and very important. Dunderman is survived by a single gray goose, whose great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandmother once lived in Dunderman’s bathtub from September 1720 to March 1721.