It's not exactly Watergate but Barack Obama's inauguration was back in the dock today after it emerged that the quartet of classical musicians who ushered him on to the steps of the Capitol were faking it.

In a report headlined "The Frigid Fingers Were Live, but the Music Wasn't", The New York Times said that the four, including the violinist Itzhak Perlman, had already recorded their contribution two days earlier and played along just for show.

A spokeswoman for the congressional committee, which organised the inauguration, the biggest and most costly in history, told the newspaper that the musicians could not have played live in Tuesday's sub-zero temperatures because of the risk of broken piano strings and cracked instruments.

“No one’s trying to fool anybody. This isn’t a matter of Milli Vanilli," said Carole Florman, referring to the lip-synching pop duo stripped of a Grammy in 1990. “Truly, weather just made it impossible."

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Yo-Yo Ma and friends had no choice but to mime - it was just too cold

Neil Fisher

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Ms Florman said that the use of a recording had not been made public beforehand but the producers overseeing television coverage of the event had been warned that it was likely. All other musical contributions on the day were performed live.

“It’s not something we would announce, but it’s not something we would try to hide,” she added. “Frankly, it would never have occurred to me to announce it."

Joining Mr Perlman for a rendition of Air and Simple Gifts, a, new work by John Williams, was the cellist Yo-Yo Ma, the clarinetist Anthony McGill and the pianist Gabriela Montero. Their performance immediately preceded Mr Obama's swearing-in, in which he uncharacteristically managed to mangle the oath of office.

It is far from being the first case of miming at a high-profile public event. The organisers of the Beijing Olympics were criticised for over-dubbing another girl's voice on a performance by a more photogenic nine-year-old during last year's opening ceremony — as well as for digitally recreated fireworks inserted into TV footage.

In pop music, Elton John famously accused Madonna of ripping off her fans by lip-synching during a world tour (an accusation she denied) and the singer Britney Spears is regularly ridiculed for miming.

Mr Perlman said that the recording, which was made on Sunday at the Marine Barracks in Washington, was used only as a last resort.

“It would have been a disaster if we had done it any other way,” he said. “This occasion’s got to be perfect. You can’t have any slip-ups.”

Mr Ma said that he just wanted to produce a performance that was emotionally genuine. "A broken string was not an option. It was wicked cold,” he said. "What we were there for was to really serve the moment.”

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