It starts with a loud, undignified squeak – then another, and another, the squeaks marching together in a strangely compelling drone. The squeaks build on themselves, coalescing into a multi-layered symphony. Suddenly you realize: yes, someone really is playing Johann Pachelbel’s Canon in D with a rubber chicken – and not only have they pulled it off, they have perhaps produced one of the greatest cultural achievements of 2019.

The video in question, which has gone modestly viral over the past two weeks, was created by two music geeks, Brett and Eddy, who operate online as @TwoSetViolin. Motivated by an aching ambition to push the frontiers of human expression – or possibly just boredom – these jokesters have accidentally wrung transcendent, sublime beauty from the world’s least likely instrument. The result is, one tweet said, “Poultry in motion.”

Johann Pachelbel's Canon in D, performed on rubber chicken, has renewed my faith in mankind. pic.twitter.com/gLyxx9l5YL — Ditz McGee 🇨🇦 (@DitzMcGeee) September 21, 2019

There is no greater testament to the enduring power of classical (or baroque) music than the fact that Pachelbel’s Canon could be replicated three centuries later on a squawking piece of mass-fabricated yellow rubber, and still bring a listener almost to tears.

The video is also the ultimate fusion of high and low culture, like a fatberg sculpted into Michelangelo’s David, or a line from Aeschylus rendered in refrigerator magnets. In praising it, we praise not only music, but human ingenuity: the astonishing ability to draw beauty from vulgarity like a shining white pearl from the oily innards of a mollusc.

I contacted Brett and Eddy for an interview but they did not respond in time for publication; no doubt they’re too busy finishing their next masterpiece. We owe them a debt of gratitude. The year 2019 may not be remembered as humanity’s best, but we had this, and no one can take it away.