Tony Duggan wrote:

>Richard Pennycuick wrote:
>
>>At one of the Hoffnung Festivals, Walton was introduced to conduct an
>>excerpt from Belshazzar's Feast.  Applause, anticipation, hushed audience.
>>Walton conducted the choir shouting the single word, "Slain!", and the
>>advertised excerpt was over.
>
>Which he did with a fly swatter instead of a baton.  You had to be there.
>(I wasn't, I hasten to add.)

Neither was I, but I would guess that to really geddit you not only
had to be there, but had to be in the choir, because clearly their entire
performance on that occasion consisted of the one bit of that rather tricky
piece that's never rehearsed, or at least never rehearsed without general
corpsing.

Alan Moss