fan letter

[calimac]

My editors printed this letter today:

Thanks for your generous and thorough review of the Symphony Silicon Valley's opening concert. Yours was the only review that mentioned, or indeed noticed, that the oboe cadenza in Beethoven's 5th was improvised by the Principal Oboist, as suggested by Beethoven himself. -- Patrick Flynn, Guest conductor, Symphony Silicon Valley.

That's my review here he's talking about. That Beethoven in fact intended this to happen I would dispute or at least query: another informed correspondent referred me to work that I have not read by musicologist Neal Zaslaw (I've read his work on Mozart symphonies, but that doesn't have anything equivalent to this). Still, at least I noticed this, though as I remarked at the time I'd have had to be asleep not to.