It was cold in Washington on Tuesday, when the inauguration took place. If you were watching or listening, you heard a quartet of Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman and a couple other performers playing a song called “Air and Simple Gifts”. It was written for the occasion by John Williams, of Star Wars fame. This much is true. You did hear the quartet playing. But you didn’t hear them live, unless you were on the dais. Instead, a recording from two days before had been piped through. The reason? The instruments went flat, and the piano strings could have broken, in the cold weather. So they had the recording ready and the performers could hear it in their earbuds and they played along. They were playing, but that’s not what most people heard. This has caused a little scandal, but that’s the way it is sometimes.