Ian Crisp wrote: [abridged] >The cellist began with a broken hair dangling off his bow. When he broke >the string and had to go off to change it, he came back with the broken >hair still there - strange that he didn't find a moment to tweak it off. >At the end of the first movement there must have been twenty or thirty >broken hairs dangling off each end of the bow - more than I think I've >ever seen. ... Curiously, I had two different solo violinists almost ten years apart [same orchestra] break their E-strings at almost exactly the same place just after the beginning of the declamatory section which links the slow movement and the finale of the Mendelssohn E minor concerto. Each went on to an unflustered performance of the finale. Anything other than sheer coincidence at work here? Cheers-Joel