Hi:  I, too, enjoyed this and plan to take a copy into our budget dept. who
have just spent the last few weeks and months trying to cut down on costs.
Thanks for the laugh.  :-)  Dick, sending you a copy, too.  Enjoy!  Joan and
Jack

>----------
>From:   Parkinson's Disease - Information Exchange Network on behalf of Diane
>Mchutchison
>Sent:   Tuesday, April 30, 1996 6:55 AM
>To:     Multiple recipients of list PARKINSN
>Subject:        managed care & unfinished symphony (humo
>
>thought you all might enjoy:
>In a message dated 96-04-30 00:32:33 EDT, I received:
>
>Subject: Cost Containment Humor: The Unfinished Symphony
>
>        The president of a large managed health care facility also served on
>the board of his community's symphony orchestra. Finding that he could not
>go to one of the concerts, he gave his tickets to the company's director of
>health care cost containment. The next morning, he asked the director how he
>enjoyed the performance. Instead of the usual polite remarks, the director
>handed him a memo which read as follows:
>
>        The undersigned submits the following comments and recommendations
>relative to the performance of Schubert's "Unfinished Symphony" by this
>city's symphony orchestra as observed under actual working conditions:
>        A. The attendance of the conductor is unnecessary for the public
>performances. The orchestra has obviously practiced and has the prior
>authorization from the conductor to play the symphony at a predetermined
>level of quality. Considerable money could be saved merely by having the
>conductor critique the orchestra's performance during a retrospective peer
>review meeting.
>        B. For considerable periods, the four oboe players had nothing to
>do. Their numbers should be reduced and their work spread over the whole
>orchestra, thus eliminating peaks and valleys of activity.
>        C. All 12 violins were playing identical notes with identical
>motions. This is unnecessary duplication: the staff of this section should
>be cut drastically with consequent savings.  If a large volume of sound is
>required, this could be obtained through electronic amplification, which has
>reached high levels of reproductive quality.
>        D. Much effort was expanded playing 16th notes or semi-quavers.
> This seems an excessive refinement, as most listeners are unable to
>distinguish such rapid playing. It is recommended that all notes be rounded
>up to eighth. If this is done, it would also be possible to use trainees and
>lower grade musicians with no loss of quality.
>        E. No useful purpose would be appear to be served by repeating with
>horns the same passage that has already been handled by the strings. If all
>such redundant passages were eliminated, as a determined by the utilization
>review committee, the concert would have been reduced from two hours to
>about 20 minutes,  resulting in substantial savings in salaries and
>overhead. In fact, if Schubert had addressed these concerns on a cost
>containment basis, he probably would have been able to finish this symphony!
>
>