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  • FUTURES

Variations on Heisenberg’s Third Concerto

A moving piece of music.
By
  1. Eleanor R. Wood

    1. Eleanor R. Wood’s stories have appeared in Flash Fiction Online, Deep Magic, Daily Science Fiction and Galaxy’s Edge, among other places. She writes and eats liquorice in southwest England.

Numerous musical notes make up repeating circles that stretch into the distance

Illustration by Jacey

I lift my baton. The orchestra is poised, ready, hands on instruments, eyes on me. My soloist sits at the Steinway to my left. Our anticipation is a singular thing; the thrumming awareness that we’re about to play something no one, not even ourselves, has heard before. This is both the joy and the fear of Heisenberg’s Third Concerto. It is never the same twice.

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-01718-6

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