The lights are down, the conductor Valeriy Ovsyanikov is ready on the podium, and…

…silence. Followed by a few gentle rustles. Nobody seemed quite sure what was happening.

Then came the tell-tale shuffles at the back of the pit as the missing players slunk on. Dear reader, unless I am very much mistaken, it was the horn section!

We were sitting too high up to see their faces clearly, but I reckon Hoffnung could have done a good job at imagining them… He could also have conjured exquisitely the expressions of the trumpet players who had to echo the fanfares but sounded suspiciously as if they were laughing as hard as I was.

Ahhh … hoorah for horns! Or not. But ya gotta love it. Sort of. Thanks for the laugh, Ms. Duchen!

And if that wasn’t funny enough, visit this blog and read about that naughty piano that says an “uh-oh” word. Click on THEIR link, and then click on the video of the news segment. It’s pretty bizarre, especially because the station must have decided the naughty word really was being said, since the bleeped out that note. Amazing. Stupidly amazing.