Paul Wittgenstein, brother of Ludwig, lost his right arm in combat during the First World War. Wishing to continue playing the piano, he commissioned one-handed works from esteemed composers, including Benjamin Britten, Sergey Prokofiev, and Maurice Ravel, insisting, for some, on having exclusive lifetime performance rights.

Before the nineteenth century, a conductor’s baton was a baseball-bat-size implement that was banged against the floor to keep time. This could be dangerous. In 1687, while conducting a symphony playing Te Deum for Louis XIV, who had just recovered from serious illness, composer Jean-Baptiste Lully accidentally struck his foot with his baton, causing inflammation in his toe. He refused amputation, and an infection spread, killing him two months later.

Humpback whales, which have a sonic range of at least seven octaves, create songs between the length of a modern ballad and a symphony movement, possibly because their attention span is similar to that of humans. Their tunes also contain repeated refrains that form melodic rhymes, suggesting that, like humans, they use these as mnemonic devices.

Hoping to encourage hostages held by FARC during Colombia’s civil war, state negotiators commissioned a local producer in 2010 to create a pop song embedded with a Morse-code message and had it broadcast repeatedly on the radio in rebel-controlled areas. After the lyrics “Listen to this message, brother,” the code sounded as a synth interlude: “Nineteen people rescued. You are next. Don’t lose hope.”