Sibelius comes to the aid of Sgt Pepper

Lonely Hearts Club Band opens Live 8 with a little help from Sibelius

Sir Paul McCartney was preparing his opening performance of Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band at the Live 8 concert held in Hyde Park last month when, with only hours to go, he realised that there were no French Horn parts, as the song had never been performed live by any of the Beatles.

In a panic, he put in a call to Sir George Martin (who was in New York at the time), who had written the parts in the first place.  Fortunately, Sir George had his laptop with Sibelius loaded with him and, realising the parts' whereabouts was 'a mystery in the sea of time', he immediately set about re-writing them completely from memory in Sibelius. The Sibelius file was then emailed across the Atlantic and the Live 8 concert began in spectacular style with Sir Paul accompanied by four French Horn players in full Sgt Pepper costume all playing their parts to perfection.

(See photos of the band, and the rest of Live 8, on the BBC site.)