Joyce Hatto hoax

[mjzee]

This is the part that got me:

"He also claims that he has not made vast amounts of money from what he has done – and that the number of recordings sold by his company (including non-Hatto discs) between April 2006 and the time of writing only number 5595. The number of recordings sold in the previous year was only 3051 (he confirmed these figures to Gramophone)."

While the story, I guess, is intellectually interesting, it's sad that so much work was expended for so little payoff. It sounds like the classical community is as small (or smaller) than the jazz community.

[JSngry]

I've yet to hear anybody comment on how most (all?) "classical" recordings are as labored over & pieced together in post-production as is any pop record. Hell, most symphonies are recorded in bits and pieces & then pieced back together from multiple takes. Sure, they can "do it live", but they don't do it live for the record. But they posit the record as The Record just as much as does any pop artist. Or fan.

A dirty little secret (except for Glen Gould & a few others), or what?

[Larry Kart]

I've yet to hear anybody comment on how most (all?) "classical" recordings are as labored over & pieced together in post-production as is any pop record. Hell, most symphonies are recorded in bits and pieces & then pieced back together from multiple takes. Sure, they can "do it live", but they don't do it live for the record. But they posit the record as The Record just as much as does any pop artist. Or fan.

A dirty little secret (except for Glen Gould & a few others), or what?

Yes, up to a point, though your "as is any pop record" is both an exaggeration, I think, and an apples/oranges thing -- the goal/model for post-production manipulation in the classical world pretty much remains the "image," or an image, of what the piece would have/might have sounded like in a concert hall. That is seldom if ever the case in the pop world any more AFAIK. Moreover, none of this has any relevance I can see to the Hatto hoax, which involved the direct copying of issued recordings of complete works by other pianists, which in most cases were then digitally manipulated (sped up but without altering pitch) in order to disguise their origin and to make the results sound more virtuosic. The husband's claim that all this copying began because he wanted/needed to edit out from otherwise topnotch Hatto recorded performances his sick wife's coughs and cries of pain and then thought of Schwarzkopf dubbing in a high note for Flagsted in Furtwangler's recording of "Tristan" recording is absurd.

[JSngry]

I've yet to hear anybody comment on how most (all?) "classical" recordings are as labored over & pieced together in post-production as is any pop record. Hell, most symphonies are recorded in bits and pieces & then pieced back together from multiple takes. Sure, they can "do it live", but they don't do it live for the record. But they posit the record as The Record just as much as does any pop artist. Or fan.

A dirty little secret (except for Glen Gould & a few others), or what?

Yes, up to a point, though your "as is any pop record" is both an exaggeration, I think, and an apples/oranges thing -- the goal/model for post-production manipulation in the classical world pretty much remains the "image," or an image, of what the piece would have/might have sounded like in a concert hall. That is seldom if ever the case in the pop world any more AFAIK. Moreover, none of this has any relevance I can see to the Hatto hoax, which involved the direct copying of issued recordings of complete works by other pianists, which in most cases were then digitally manipulated (sped up but without altering pitch) in order to disguise their origin and to make the results sound more virtuosic. The husband's claim that all this copying began because he wanted/needed to edit out from otherwise topnotch Hatto recorded performances his sick wife's coughs and cries of pain and then thought of Schwarzkopf dubbing in a high note for Flagsted in Furtwangler's recording of "Tristan" recording is absurd.

Well, yeah.

But...

Personally, I think the use of "tools" to create an "alternate reality" in sound (as in pop) that might well not exist otherwise is a lot more ethical - and creative - than using them to create the "illusion" of a "true" reality that could exist if everybody played everything right all at once.

Relevancy to the Hatto hoax? Minimal at best, other than instead of sending people off into a tizzy about fraud, it ought to get people asking what they've really been listening to all along in classical recordings, which many hold as examples of "pure music". Lots of illusions would/should be shattered.

[Claude]

Hell, most symphonies are recorded in bits and pieces & then pieced back together from multiple takes. Sure, they can "do it live", but they don't do it live for the record.

I don't see a problem with that, it's been done for decades. I recently bought some Shostakovich symphonies recorded by Kurt Sanderling in the 70s for the east german state label. In a typically japanese fashion, these SACD reissues mention in detail the information writen on the tapes, concerning equipment used and the amount of time spent in the studio recording and cutting. I don't remember the exact figures, but cutting took more than 50 hours for one recording. You can imagine the number of take comparisions and cuts involved. But these are highly regarded recordings, and none of the cuts is noticeable.

Most recordings with famous orchestras on the "major" labels are now actually recorded live, for economic reasons, usually in 2 or 3 evening performances in the same hall, and then the best (and least noisy) parts are cut together for CD release.

Edited February 27, 2007 by Claude

[David Ayers]

This is the part that got me:

"He also claims that he has not made vast amounts of money from what he has done – and that the number of recordings sold by his company (including non-Hatto discs) between April 2006 and the time of writing only number 5595. The number of recordings sold in the previous year was only 3051 (he confirmed these figures to Gramophone)."

While the story, I guess, is intellectually interesting, it's sad that so much work was expended for so little payoff. It sounds like the classical community is as small (or smaller) than the jazz community.

This man has admitted fraud and all his comments should be read as attempts to manipulate. He even had the Gramophone (never missing an opportunity to be sycophantic around the 'music industry' - in this case just a reflex) saying that what music fans wanted to know now was which recordings were genuine. First, we can assume that none are genuine - in any case no evidence presented by the company could be regarded as genuine. Second, people who bought them want and are owed a full refund, not just 'the truth'. Gramophone backed this swindler and one of their reviewers was allowed to challenge sceptics to supply 'evidence that would stand up in court' that the recordings were not genuine. He provided no evidence himself. Gramophone is not quite in the dock over this, but they definitely took the wrong side and now look like mugs who couldn't tell the difference between different artists, different pianos, different venues, and different recording set-ups (sometimes within the same piece) - all the things that recorded music reviewers are supposed to know.

[Dan Gould]

David is spot on in his comments except he is missing one other aggrieved party: the original musician is owed royalties or a session fee or something since their work was ripped off. Not to mention the recording labels.

[Claude]

I think the musicians that were copied will actually benefit from the scandal, because many of them were hardly known and their recordings will now be reevaluated and maybe reissued.

Who knew László Simon's Liszt recordings (released by BIS in 1987), before they were stolen by Barrington-Coupe?

23. February 2007

Hatto’s Liszt may be Simon’s

One of the first Hatto recordings about which doubts were raised was that of Franz Liszt’s Transcendental Etudes. The astonishing similarity between this and a much earlier recording made by László Simon for BIS Records (BIS-CD-369) has been the subject of much debate. As a result we feel the need to explain the position of BIS Records:

"Assuming that the allegation that László Simon's BIS recording of Liszt's Transcendental Etudes was copied and passed off as Joyce Hatto's own recording is true, I would be most interested in the background to this theft. Given the circumstances surrounding Ms. Hatto's sickness and fate, there may be deeply felt – if misguided – personal reasons for it. Unless further, aggravating circumstances are discovered, we do therefore not intend to take any legal steps against those responsible for the possible infringement of the copyright of BIS Records.

In the meantime, all credit is due to László Simon for having created Hatto's benchmark recording. Released in 1987, the Simon original – like every BIS recording ever released – is still available through our worldwide network of distributors."

Robert von Bahr

CEO, BIS Records

http://www.bis.se/bis_pages/bis_news.php

Edited February 27, 2007 by Claude

[Jim Alfredson]

I've yet to hear anybody comment on how most (all?) "classical" recordings are as labored over & pieced together in post-production as is any pop record. Hell, most symphonies are recorded in bits and pieces & then pieced back together from multiple takes. Sure, they can "do it live", but they don't do it live for the record. But they posit the record as The Record just as much as does any pop artist. Or fan.

A dirty little secret (except for Glen Gould & a few others), or what?

I'll never forget when I was working for MSU Recording Services (as the chief engineer... nice job that I got screwed out of, but that's another story) and one of the saxophone graduate students (nice cat from Italy) hired me to record a piece for his "audition" packet. It was a saxophone/piano piece, modern classical thing.

We did about 12 takes of the tune and then literally edited the final one together, measure by measure. It took about three days.

How honest is that?

[AllenLowe]

be sure to listen to my new recording of Blue 7 with liner notes by Gunther Schuller -

[Tom Storer]

This man has admitted fraud and all his comments should be read as attempts to manipulate.

Quite true.

First, we can assume that none are genuine - in any case no evidence presented by the company could be regarded as genuine. Second, people who bought them want and are owed a full refund, not just 'the truth'.

Also true.

Gramophone backed this swindler and one of their reviewers was allowed to challenge sceptics to supply 'evidence that would stand up in court' that the recordings were not genuine.

All Gramaphone is guilty of, it seems to me, is having been taken in by the swindler. It seems normal that they would start out with an attitude of "innocent until proven guilty." They did ask for people to step forward if they had any proof of monkey business. And what happened when they were presented with evidence that can stand up in court? They accepted it immediately and announced in their own magazine that they had been made fools of. This could be denounced as profiting from the scandal after having profited from the scam, since both sell copies, but what choice did they have? Imagine what people would have said if they had refused to give the scandal major coverage. They were made fools of but that's not the same thing as having had fraudulent intent.

[Dan Gould]

I think the musicians that were copied will actually benefit from the scandal, because many of them were hardly known and their recordings will now be reevaluated and maybe reissued.

Quite true, and when all of the performances are ID'd, it will be interesting to go back and see how the same "critics" who fawned over Hatto treated the source recordings originally.

[David Ayers]

All Gramaphone is guilty of, it seems to me, is having been taken in by the swindler. It seems normal that they would start out with an attitude of "innocent until proven guilty." They did ask for people to step forward if they had any proof of monkey business. And what happened when they were presented with evidence that can stand up in court? They accepted it immediately and announced in their own magazine that they had been made fools of. This could be denounced as profiting from the scandal after having profited from the scam, since both sell copies, but what choice did they have? Imagine what people would have said if they had refused to give the scandal major coverage. They were made fools of but that's not the same thing as having had fraudulent intent.

I didn't say they had fraudulent intent, but I do say that when pushed they started bluffing their readers. They had no evidence of the provenance of these recordings but called out the sceptics to supply evidence of a type and standard that they themselves could not supply. Although these recordings were mostly supposed to have been made in the same venue on the same piano by the same pianist and with the same engineer, they were simply unable to identify differences in all of these things which were pointed out by sceptics. Even allowing for the collective tin ear of these CD hoarding geeks (oops, I mean of "the world's leading critics", as it says on their book), the sheer implausibility of one pianist suddenly producing the greatest single recorded oeuvre in history ought to have been questioned by them as it was by others - it was wrong to try to shout down such doubt which was self evidently correct (and which by the way led most sensible collectors to ignore the Concert Artist recordings).

So I agree, they look fools because that is what they are, but given the extent and articulacy of doubt they were wrong to get all huffy when challenged and should never have endorsed Hatto in the first place.

Edited February 27, 2007 by David Ayers

[Claude]

It's obvious that the british critics were so happy about their national piano treasure that they didn't ask questions. Especially the piano concerto recordings (originally made by the Vienna Philharmonic and the L.A. Philharmonic, in their halls) should have raised doubts.

Edited February 27, 2007 by Claude

[mandrill]

Meanwhile, hold on to your Hat[to]s! You may be sitting on a

goldmine

Edited February 28, 2007 by Mandrill

[JSngry]

Meanwhile, hold on to your Hat[to]s! You may be sitting on a

goldmine

Or evidence!

http://cgi.ebay.com/Joyce-Hatto-fraud-Rare...1QQcmdZViewItem

[brownie]

Recommend ya'll watch a recent documentary, Glenn Gould Hereafter dir. Bruno Monsaingeon (also friend of Richter.)

it's already visible on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_quer...p;search=Search

[ghost of miles]

Some letters to the editor in the NY Times today:

Now, a CD Called ‘Plagiarism in B Flat’ (4 Letters)

Published: March 2, 2007

To the Editor:

Pianist’s Widower Admits Fraud in Recordings Issued as His Wife’s (February 27, 2007)

Op-Ed Contributor: Shoot the Piano Player (February 26, 2007) Re “Pianist’s Widower Admits Fraud in Recordings Issued as His Wife’s” (Arts pages, Feb. 27):

Having witnessed many respected people in the classical music world praise the now-discredited recordings of Joyce Hatto, I know that the ramifications of this scandal are serious.

Classical music is already suffering from declining public interest while its audience rapidly ages. The marketing departments at the major music labels try to drum up business by contributing to a cult of personality that demands that performers have some interesting story or pretty face. Talent is secondary.

And while many of my peers may feel themselves victims of an elaborate hoax in which other pianists’ performances were sold as Ms. Hatto’s, they also share some of the blame. Where was the ravishing praise for worthy pianists like Laszlo Simon?

Dana John Hill

Gainesville, Fla., Feb. 28, 2007

The writer is the host and producer of “Afternoon Classics” on WUFT-FM.

•

To the Editor:

“Shoot the Piano Player,” by Denis Dutton (Op-Ed, Feb. 26), touched me personally, for I am one of the pianists whose recordings were stolen.

This scandal is a moral and legal issue since it is, in a larger sense, a public one. The music-buying public is deceived as to the true identity of the actual artists whose CDs it has bought. I feel some sense of redemption in that the real artists are now being identified and given credit, albeit retroactively.

What would help to right this wrong is for the reviewers of Joyce Hatto’s recordings to comment on the merits of the original artists. It is sad that it takes a scandal of this proportion to bring attention to the worthy work of many dedicated and deserving, but often less recognized, artists.

Paul S. Kim

Brookville, N.Y., Feb. 26, 2007

The writer is a professor of music history and piano studies at Long Island University, C. W. Post Campus.

•

To the Editor:

Denis Dutton suggests that Joyce Hatto’s true contribution was as a curator of some of the best classical music performances by underrecognized pianists. Some record producer should take the hint and put together a set of the recordings that were plagiarized.

Royalties should, of course, go to the original performers. Joyce Hatto got more than her fair share.

Eva Kittay

Jeffrey Kittay

White Lake, N.Y., Feb. 27, 2007

•

To the Editor:

Joyce Hatto, whose CDs made in her 60s and 70s have now been proved to be the work of younger virtuosos, will sadly not be remembered as a “prodigy of old age,” a term used by Denis Dutton.

Yet there is a legendary living pianist, Ruth Slenczynska, who was a world-famous child prodigy but is now in her 80s and still teaching, performing and recording with her own age-defying hands. Madame Slenczynska is a neighbor of mine, and I have the pleasure of hearing her practice daily.

She is a true “prodigy of old age” — not unlike her teacher and mentor, Sergei Rachmaninoff.

Les Dreyer

New York, Feb. 26, 2007

The writer is a violinist with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra.

Not a classical head or buff--have a # of things I bought or got as promos when I did my Borders stint a few years back--but I always liked the Naxos Historical cds that we carried. Other opinions here on that particular series?

Edited March 4, 2007 by ghost of miles

[Chuck Nessa]

Not a classical head or buff--have a # of things I bought or got as promos when I did my Borders stint a few years back--but I always liked the Naxos Historical cds that we carried. Other opinions here on that particular series?

A few are great, some good and some suck.

[Larry Kart]

Some fresh stupidity on the subject from The Third Reich (comments follow):

Reviewers not to blame for Hatto fraud

By Howard Reich

Tribune arts critic

Published March 4, 2007

So the critics allegedly blew it.

They raved about classical recordings released under the name of pianist Joyce Hatto, and it turns out the CDs weren't by Hatto at all: Her husband had borrowed recordings by some truly celebrated artists -- such as Vladimir Ashkenazy, Yefim Bronfman and Minoru Nojima -- and passed them off as Hatto's.

The reviewers, it seems, were stunned by the prowess of these releases.

"Even in the most daunting repertoire, her poise in the face of one pianistic storm after another is a source of astonishment," wrote Bryce Morrison in Gramophone.

"Joyce Hatto must be the greatest living pianist that almost no one has ever heard of," enthused critic Richard Dyer in the Boston Globe.

"Her legacy is a discography that in quantity, musical range and consistent quality has been equaled by few pianists in history," observed critic Jeremy Nicholas in an obituary of Hatto last July, in London's Guardian.

Last month, when recording engineer Andrew Rose proved -- by comparing sound wave patterns -- that Hatto's releases actually had been pilfered from the work of many other pianists, some observers began chortling.

"Quite a few critics fell for the discography of the late British pianist Joyce Hatto," wrote Tim Smith, in the Baltimore Sun. "They have probably been trying to wipe the egg from their faces since the news broke a couple of weeks ago that the recordings are a giant fraud."

How absurd.

The critics who applauded Hatto's alleged recordings indeed were recognizing great performances by estimable artists. They were doing, in fact, precisely what critics are supposed to do: discern artistic excellence.

That Hatto's husband and record producer, William Barrington-Coupe, committed fraud by proffering the artistic achievements of other pianists as his wife's work does nothing to diminish the value of the original recordings themselves, nor the critics' assessments of them.

Furthermore, no human pair of ears -- no matter how adept -- possibly could be expected to identify in Hatto's 100-plus releases the plagiarized and often technologically manipulated recordings of uncounted other pianists (to date, no one but Barrington-Coupe himself knows how many sources he raided to bolster his wife's reputation).

The egg lies not on the faces of the critics but, rather, on the character of Barrington-Coupe.

That's not to say, however, that critics are beyond reproach. If any writers reviewed the same recordings differently, depending on whether Hatto's name or someone else's was on the label, they clearly have some explaining to do.

Certainly such errors of analysis, and worse, have been committed in the name of music criticism.

Consider a case that unfolded locally in 1990, when a Chicago critic went to review a performance by Andre Watts at the Ravinia Festival, in Highland Park.

The critic wrote that the concert proved Watts was "beyond the shadow of a doubt, the greatest living pianist in the concert arena."

Alas, Watts never took the stage -- he canceled, with pianist Ju Hee Suh taking his place.

"I arrived late and had not been informed of the change," he told the Tribune at the time. "I couldn't see the stage."

Nor hear it, apparently.

That has not happened in Hatto's case -- at least not yet.

Comments: The critics are responsible, in most cases, for being strongly influenced in their judgments by Barrington-Coupe's (the husband's) carefully crafted, multi-faceted, and mostly or entirely faked-up human interest story, whose components were 1) forgotten and/or little-known, unfairly neglected genius 2) terribly-ill-for-many-years genius 3) and, in the case of the Brit crits who fell earliest and hardest for the fraud, forgotten and/or little-known, unfairly neglected, terribly-ill-for-many-years Brit genius. The critics, in most cases, are also responsible for not questioning the obvious anomalies in the Hatto story (more than a 100 recordings, of virtuoso repertory in many cases, allegedly recorded in a short span of time by a woman who was that ill; the pseudonymous, previously unheard of even in the realm of pseudonyms, orchestras; the conducter no one had ever heard of, etc.). Also most/many of the critics (certainly any who listened to more than a few "Hatto" recordings) are responsible for not detecting, however good any of the pirated and manipulated recordings might be, how wildly different in style the body of "Hatto's" recorded work was -- well beyond the boundaries of any previously known stylistically flexible pianist of any talent. And then there is the special category of critics who praised "Hatto's" recording of Work X after dismissing in a previous review the recording of that work that "Hatto's" recording was pirated from. No responsibility there.

[Dan Gould]

Some fresh stupidity on the subject from The Third Reich (comments follow):

By Howard Reich

Tribune arts critic

Published March 4, 2007

... That's not to say, however, that critics are beyond reproach. If any writers reviewed the same recordings differently, depending on whether Hatto's name or someone else's was on the label, they clearly have some explaining to do.

Comments: .... And then there is the special category of critics who praised "Hatto's" recording of Work X after dismissing in a previous review the recording of that work that "Hatto's" recording was pirated from. No responsibility there.

Reich already pointed out what you offer as something "missing" from his column.

I for one say that Reich is entirely correct as far as he goes, and Larry adds an important additional element, the "boosterism" and the back-story that helped to sell the fraud. Certainly anyone who panned the original recording and then hyped Hatto's supposed work should be laughed out of the profession.

[Larry Kart]

[

Reich already pointed out what you offer as something "missing" from his column.

One toke over the line. Howard has that effect on me.

[Tom Storer]

It's only because the nature of jazz is so different--performer-based rather than composer-based, with individualism such a big part of the mix--that the world of jazz criticism is not as vulnerable to a Hatto-style hoax. In what alternative universe can we find critics who are heroes of objectivity, uninfluenced by back-story, marketing, or their own settled allegiances or personal relations with artists? All of us are more likely to be stern and dismissive of music or artists we've already decided we don't like, and forgiving of those we've already decided we approve of. All of us can fall prey to "human interest" reactions that influence how we hear things. Critics are no different. It's not like the classical critics who were taken in by Hatto are the lowest of the low, utter frauds unmasked at last. They just screwed up due to perfectly ordinary failings, and for many of their peers it's only good luck that they were busy reviewing other things than Hatto. I'm sure there are more than one of them secretly thinking, "Thank GOD I never submitted that Hatto rave I have sitting on my hard disk!"

Many of us here have gone through the humbling experience of the Organissimo blindfold tests. Those will make any would-be expert sweat a little. It would be interesting to have a panel of critics, jazz or classical, test their spontaneous reactions and assumed objectivity in a situation like that. (Say, if any of you are also posters on rec.music.classical.recordings, you ought to propose organizing a BFT set-up like we have here!)

Edited March 5, 2007 by Tom Storer

[David Ayers]

Treat yourself to this Interview with Joyce Hatto from 2006 if you want to try to peer through the web of deceit.

Regarding Tom's point on blind tests etc., that is not the point. The critics who backed Hatto responded with ignorant bluster to the many people who pointed out the discrepancies of style, instrument and venue.

On the subject of instrument, listen to Hatto's deceitful response in this interview to attempts to test her claim she has been recording on Rachmaninov's own pianos [yes, plural].

Incidentally, these dunces have continued in the same vein, by reproducing hubby's further lies about how his wife knew nothing, he did it for love, it started with just patching, etc - all quite obviously total lies but the press just trotted it all out.

Edited March 5, 2007 by David Ayers

[Tom Storer]

Regarding Tom's point on blind tests etc., that is not the point. The critics who backed Hatto responded with ignorant bluster to the many people who pointed out the discrepancies of style, instrument and venue. [...] Incidentally, these dunces have continued in the same vein, by reproducing hubby's further lies about how his wife knew nothing, he did it for love, it started with just patching, etc - all quite obviously total lies but the press just trotted it all out.

Maybe I haven't followed it closely enough. Is every critic who gave Hatto a favorable review now behaving this way? Or is the anger against a particular set of critics who are refusing to eat humble pie? Or were there only those few to begin with?