"Have We Polluted the Cosmos, or After All Enriched It?"

"When the Music Ends."
By Philip Ball (born 1962).
Illustration by JACEY.
First appearance: Nature/Futures, 20 November 2014.
Short short short story (1 page).
Online at Nature.com (HERE; PDF).

     "It was when I got to Bach that I began fully to understand how perilous this stuff was."

The key to a social revolution doesn't have to be hard lead bullets; it can be as brittle as vinyl . . .

Resources:
- Philip Ball's writing credits are overwhelmingly of the science fact variety; see Wikipedia (HERE) and the ISFDb (HERE) for confirmation. He has published another SFF story, "A Leap of Faith" (2000; online HERE; PDF), under the "Theo von Hohenheim" alias (FictionMags).
- The condition of amusia is real and has been the subject of much study; see Wikipedia (HERE). Equally real was Henry Purcell, a child of the 17th century and composer of Baroque music; Wikipedia has ample data about him (HERE and HERE) and the composition mentioned in our story (HERE).

- For those of you too young to remember, when the author writes, "I think of Bach sent floating in golden grooves a century ago towards other stars," he's referring to (THIS).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~