Beethoven's Ninth The Boston Symphony was performing Beethoven's Ninth. In the piece, there's a long passage about 20 minutes during which the bass violinists have nothing to do. Rather than sit around the whole time looking stupid, some bassists decided to sneak offstage and go to the tavern next door for a quick one. After slamming several beers in quick succession, one of them looked at his watch. ""Hey! We need to get back!"" ""No need to panic,"" said a fellow bassist, ""I thought we might ā¦