Joyce Hatto

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Joyce Hatto (5 September 1928 – 29 or 30 June 2006) was a British pianist and piano teacher. She became famous late in life, when unauthorized copies of commercial recordings made by other pianists were released under her name, earning her high praise from critics. The fraud only came to light a few months after her death.

Contents 1 Career 2 Fame 3 Recordings unmasked 3.1 Admission of fraud 4 Recordings and their sources 4.1 Early discography 5 Notes 6 External links

[edit] Career

Hatto played at a small number of concerts in London beginning in the 1950s. There were also concerts by "pupils of Joyce Hatto":^[1] she taught the piano at Crofton Grange, a girls' boarding school in Hertfordshire.^[2]

Her playing drew mixed notices from the critics. A critic for The Times wrote of an October 1953 performance at Chelsea Town Hall that "Joyce Hatto grappled doggedly with too hasty tempi in Mozart's D Minor piano concerto and was impeded from conveying significant feelings towards the work, especially in quick figuration."^[3] Trevor Harvey wrote of her Saga recording of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No.2 "one wonders ... whether her technique is really on top of the difficulties of this music ... She shows a musical sense of give and take with the orchestra but it remains a small, rather pallid performance" (The Gramophone, August 1961).

Vernon Handley, who conducted the Guildford Philharmonic on her recording of Sir Arnold Bax's Symphonic Variations, also had reservations: "She was very, very good as a solo player, and a very nice person, but she had a very doubtful sense of rhythm ... [t]he recording of the Bax was a tremendous labour."^[4] Still the record received a favourable review: "Joyce Hatto gives a highly commendable account of the demanding piano part," wrote Robert Layton (Gramophone, February 1971).

In 1973 Hatto gave the world premiere of two recently-published Bourrées by Chopin in London's Queen Elizabeth Hall.^[5] However by 1976 she had stopped performing in public, with only a few recordings to her credit. It was later claimed that she was already battling cancer at the time.^[6] However, the consultant radiologist who saw her every six weeks for the last eight years of her life stated that she was first treated for ovarian cancer in 1992, fourteen years before her death and had had no previous history of the disease.^[7]

[edit] Fame

In Hatto's last years, more than 100 recordings falsely attributed to her appeared. The repertoire represented on the CDs included the complete sonatas of Beethoven, Mozart and Prokofiev, concertos by Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, Brahms and Mendelssohn, and most of Chopin's compositions, along with rarer works such as the complete Godowsky Chopin Studies. The recordings were released, along with piano recordings falsely attributed to the late Sergio Fiorentino, by the English label Concert Artist Recordings, run by Hatto's husband William Barrington-Coupe. Barrington-Coupe had a long history in the record industry ^[8]. To go along with the release of these 'Hatto' recordings, stories began to be spread by Barrington-Coupe about his wife's contacts in the distant past with many of the greatest musicians of the mid-twentieth century, all by then dead;^[3] even the distinguished critic Neville Cardus had been dazzled by her playing, according to a story found in one obituary.^[9]

From 2003 onwards, the recordings attributed to Hatto began to receive enthusiastic praise from a small number of participants on various Usenet groups, mailing lists, and web forums^[10], sparked by a blind-listening test in December 2002 posted on ThePiano Yahoo! group featuring a recording under Hatto's name of Liszt's Mephisto Waltz. Specialized record review magazines and websites, such as Gramophone, MusicWeb and Classics Today, as well as newspapers such as The Boston Globe, eventually discovered Hatto, reviewed the recordings (with mostly very favourable notices), and published interviews and appreciations of her career; in one case, she was described as "the greatest living pianist that almost no one has ever heard of."^[11] Those praising the recordings included Tom Deacon, a former record producer for Philips, who produced the Great Pianists series, Bryce Morrison, a long-time reviewer for Gramophone, Jed Distler, a reviewer for Classics Today, Ateş Orga, a music critic who also wrote some of the liner notes for Concert Artist, as well as an obituary, and Ivan Davis, a well-known professional pianist ^[12].

In May 2005, the musicologist Marc-André Roberge reported on the Yahoo! Godowsky group!^[13] that, in Hatto’s version of the Chopin-Godowsky Studies on the Concert Artist label, a misreading of a chord was identical to one on the Carlo Grante recording (AIR-CD-9092, released 1993). However, this curious coincidence did not prompt Roberge (or others) to investigate further, and verification of the copying from the Grante disc only occurred in 2007 (see below).

In early 2006, doubts about various aspects of Hatto's recording output were expressed, both in the RMCR Usenet Group and, following the publication of a lengthy appreciation of Hatto in the March issue of Gramophone, by readers of that magazine. In particular, some found it hard to believe that a pianist who had not performed in public for decades and was said to be fighting cancer should produce in her old age a vast number of recordings, all apparently of high quality. It also proved difficult to confirm any of the details of the recordings made with orchestra, including even the existence of the conductor credited. The doubters were vigorously countered, most publicly by critic Jeremy Nicholas who, in the July 2006 issue of Gramophone, challenged unnamed sceptics to substantiate their accusations by providing evidence that would "stand up in a court of law". Nicholas's challenge was not taken up, and in December, Radio New Zealand was able, in all innocence, to re-broadcast their hour-long programme of glowing appreciation of the Concert Artist Hatto CDs. This programme included excerpts from a phone interview with Hatto herself, conducted on April 6, 2006, in which she said nothing to dispel the presenter's assumption that she was the sole pianist on all the CDs.

The favourable reviews and publicity generated substantial sales for the Concert Artist CDs: in 2006, one online retailer did £50,000 worth of business with Barrington-Coupe.^[14]

Hatto died on June 29 or June 30, 2006^[15][16] (sources differ as to the actual date).

[edit] Recordings unmasked

In February 2007 it was announced that the CDs ascribed to Hatto had been discovered to contain copies, in some cases digitally manipulated (stretched or shrunk in time, re-equalised and rebalanced), of published commercial recordings made by other artists. While some of these artists were well-known, the majority were less so. When Brian Ventura, a financial analyst from Mount Vernon, New York, put the recording of Liszt's Transcendental Etudes credited to Hatto into his computer, the Gracenote database used by the iTunes software identified the disc not as a recording by Hatto but as one by László Simon. On checking online samples of the Simon recording, Ventura found it to be remarkably similar to the version credited to Hatto. He then contacted Jed Distler, a critic for Classics Today and Gramophone, who had praised many of the recordings ascribed to Hatto.^[17]

Says Distler,

“

When I received Brian Ventura’s e-mail I decided to investigate further. After careful comparison of the actual Simon performances to the Hatto, it appeared to me that 10 out of 12 tracks showed remarkable similarity in terms of tempi, accents, dynamics, balances, etc. By contrast, Track Five, Feux Follets, sounded different between the two sources. I reported my findings to Mr. Ventura, and cc'd Classicstoday.com editor David Hurwitz. I also cc'd Gramophone's editor James Inverne, plus three of my Gramophone colleagues who had written about Hatto. Then I wrote Mr. Barrington-Coupe. He quickly replied, claiming not to know what had happened, and to be as puzzled as I was. At James Inverne's suggestion, Andrew Rose [of the audio-restoration business Pristine Audio] contacted me, and I uploaded three MP3s from the Hatto Liszt disc. Andrew's research[18] confirmed what my ears suspected: at least two Liszt tracks were identical between BIS and Concert Artist, while at least one was not.[19]

”

An identification of the source of another recording, which had been in preparation for some months,^[20] was released the following day by The AHRC Research Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music (CHARM) (based at Royal Holloway, University of London)^[21] as a by-product of research on performances of Chopin Mazurkas.^[22] Within a week of the initial story being posted on the Gramophone website on 15 February, the sources for some 20 of Hatto's Concert Artist CDs had been identified.

On each of the concerto recordings published in Hatto's final years under her name, the conductor's name was given as "René Köhler", and Barrington-Coupe provided a detailed biography for "Köhler".^[23] The information given there has not withstood careful scrutiny.^[24] The conductors whose work is represented on the concerto recordings credited to Hatto and Köhler are now known to include Esa-Pekka Salonen, André Previn and Bernard Haitink, while the orchestras, claimed to be the National Philharmonic-Symphony and the Warsaw Philharmonia, are now known to include the Vienna Philharmonic, The Philharmonia, and the Royal Philharmonic.

[edit] Admission of fraud

Barrington-Coupe initially denied any wrongdoing but subsequently admitted the fraud in a letter to Robert von Bahr, the head of the Swedish BIS record label that had originally issued some of the recordings plagiarized by Concert Artists. Bahr shared the contents of the letter with Gramophone magazine, which reported the confession on its website on February 26, 2007. ^[25] Barrington-Coupe claims that Hatto was unaware of the deception, that he acted out of love and made little money from the enterprise, and that he started out by pasting portions of other pianists' recordings into recordings made by Hatto in order to cover up her "gasps of pain". Some critics, however, have cast doubt on this version of events.^[26][27] The discovery of plagiarized tracks on a Concert Artist compact disc released under the name of pianist Sergio Fiorentino raised further questions.^[28] Barrington-Coupe has so far refused to help identify the sources of the recordings issued under Hatto's name, claiming that "whatever I do, it won’t be enough".^[29]

The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) has begun an investigation. If the allegations are true, it would be "one of the most extraordinary cases of piracy the record industry had ever seen", according to a BPI spokesman.^[30]

[edit] Recordings and their sources

Here is a list of some of the performances attributed to Hatto whose sources have so far been discovered (sorted by Concert Artist catalogue number). More detailed track by track information can be found at the Joyce Hatto Identifications website

Catalogue no.	Recording	Sources
CACD 20012	Frédéric Chopin Mazurkas	Revealed as Eugen Indjic's 1988 performances released on the Claves label and re-released on Calliope (3321) in 2005. The number of Mazurkas on both CD sets is the same, but the ordering of them is different. The CACD20012 release has added filtering, and the speeds of each performance pair vary slightly in the range of a few percent (+1.2%, -2.8%, and -0.7% for three sample Mazurkas).[31][32] A cassette version of the Mazurkas released in 1993 was also taken at least in part from Indjic.[33]
CACD 20022	Leopold Godowsky Studies on Chopin's Etudes	Tracks 1 and 14 are from the recording by Ian Hobson on Arabesque (Z6537). Tracks 2, 4-13, 16, 18, 22, and 23 are from the recording by Carlo Grante on Altarus. Tracks 3, 15, 17, 19-21, and 24-27 are from Marc-André Hamelin's recording on Hyperion.[34]
CACD 20032	Olivier Messiaen Vingt regards sur l'enfant-Jésus	A copy of a performance by Paul Kim, recorded for Centaur in January 2002, time-stretched (slowed down) by 2.4%.[35]
CACD 20042	Maurice Ravel Complete Piano Music	Found to be a copy of a CD release by Roger Muraro on the Accord label (Universal Classics France), recorded in May, 2003.[36]
CACD 80002	Johannes Brahms Piano Concerto No.1, No.2, Rhapsodies, Op.79, Rhapsody Op.119 No.4.	Piano Concerto No.1 copied from a performance by Horacio Gutiérrez with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by André Previn on Telarc.[37] The same recording appears to be the source for the cassette recording of a performance of the concerto credited to Hatto (FED4-TC-098), dated 1994.[38]
CACD 80012	Johannes Brahms Piano Concerto No.2, Klavierstücke Op.118	Piano Concerto No.2 copied from a performance by Vladimir Ashkenazy with the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Bernard Haitink on Decca.[39] Of the 6 pieces, Op.118, Nos.1, 2, 3, & 6 are performed by Dezső Ránki, from his recording on Harmonia Mundi (QUI 903083).[40]
CACD 80022	Ludwig van Beethoven Piano Sonatas Op.2	Taken from the recording by John O'Conor on Telarc.[41] At least 25 of the sonatas in the series come from O'Conor's recording.[42]
CACD 80092	Ludwig van Beethoven Piano Sonatas Op.7, Op.106	Taken from the recording by John O'Conor on Telarc.[43]
CACD 80102	Ludwig van Beethoven Piano Sonatas Nos. 30-32	Taken from the recording by John O'Conor on Telarc (CD80261).[44]
CACD 90302; 90312	Johannes Brahms Complete Piano Works Vols. 4 & 5	Scherzo, Op.4, Ballades, Op.10 Nos. 1, 2, 3, Op. 118 Nos. 3 & 6, Op. 119 Nos. 3 & 4 taken from Dezső Ránki's recording on Harmonia Mundi (QUI 903083).[45]
CACD 90382	Frédéric Chopin Complete Piano Works, Vol.4: The Ballades and Rondos	Rondos taken from the recording by Joanna Trzeciak on Pavane (ADW 7291)[46]
CACD 90422	Frédéric Chopin Complete Piano Works, Vol.7: The Waltzes 1-20	Waltz No. 20 in F sharp minor comes from the Jerzy Sterczynski CD on Selene.[47]
CACD 90432	Frédéric Chopin Complete Piano Works, Vol.8: The Three Piano Sonatas	Piano Sonata No.1 taken from the recording by Joanna Trzeciak on Pavane (ADW 7291).[48]
CACD 90522	Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Piano Sonatas, K.284, K.309, K.310	These three Sonatas are copied from the set by Ingrid Haebler on Denon (CO-79399).[49] Hatto's other solo Mozart CDs have also been compared and the recordings have been shown to be identical to Haebler's.[citation needed]
CACD 90672	Franz Liszt A Liszt Recital	Mephisto Waltz is taken from Musica Viva (1035 performed by Janina Fialkowska[50]
CACD 90682	Johann Sebastian Bach Goldberg Variations	At least in part a copy of a performance by Chen Pi-hsien available on Naxos.[51] The theme and first five variations have been compared side to side and are confirmed matches.
CACD 90722	Felix Mendelssohn Songs without Words, Vol.1	11 of these pieces come from Sergei Babayan's recording on CNR Classics.[52]
CACD 90832	Frédéric Chopin Works for Piano & Orchestra, Vol.2	Krakowiak performed by İdil Biret on Naxos (slow introduction) and Garrick Ohlsson (fast section).[53]
CACD 90842	Franz Liszt Transcendental Etudes	Found to be a copy of performances by László Simon on BIS. In some copies, Minoru Nojima's recording on the Reference Recordings label replaces Simon's for étude no.5.[54]
CACD 90852	Camille Saint-Saëns Piano Concerto No.2	This appears to be the performance by Jean-Philippe Collard, accompanied by conductor Andre Previn, on EMI.[55]
CACD 91112	Franz Liszt Operatic Transcriptions: The Italian Opera, Vol.2	Hexameron is put together from recordings by Endre Hegedűs on Hungaroton, Francesco Nicolosi on Nuova Era, and Oleg Marshev on Danacord. Réminiscences des Puritains is from Hungaroton (HCD 31299) performed by Endre Hegedűs.[56] The Réminiscences de Norma and Réminiscences de Lucia di Lammermoor are performed by Boris Bloch on Accord.[57]
CACD 91122	Franz Liszt Operatic Transcriptions: The Italian Opera, Vol.3	Tracks 1-5 taken from two CDs, Hungaroton (HCD 31547) and (HCD 31299) performed by Endre Hegedűs.[58] Track 6 is from Giovanni Bellucci's recording on Assai (222172). (See also CACD91332.)[59]
CACD 91202	Isaac Albéniz Iberia	All tracks taken from the recording by Jean-Francois Heisser on Erato (4509-94807).[citation needed] Evocacion is stretched by 30 seconds.[citation needed]
CACD 91212, 91222; 91232; 91242	Sergei Prokofiev Piano Works	Taken at least in large part from the set recorded by Oleg Marshev on the Danacord label. Sonata Nos. 1, 6, 7, and 8 have been matched so far.[60][61]
CACD 91272	Sergei Rachmaninov Preludes	Preludes Op.23 No.4 in D major, Op.32 No.5 in G major, Op.32 No.12 in G sharp minor, and Op.32 No.13 in D flat major are copied from John Browning on Delos (DE 3044).[citation needed]
CACD 91292	Modest Mussorgsky - Pictures at an Exhibition; Sergei Rachmaninov - Piano Sonata No.1	The Mussorgsky is taken from the recording by Michele Campanella on Nuova Era (9708017513599).[62] The Rachmaninoff is taken from the recording by Tomás Kramreiter on the Ex Libris label.[63]
CACD 91302	Claude Debussy Preludes	Copied from Izumi Tateno's recording on Canyon Classics (PCCL 00122)/Finlandia (FACD 411).[64]
CACD 91312	Claude Debussy Complete Piano Works, Vol.2	Arabesques 1 & 2 are by Balázs Szokolay on Naxos. Hommage a Haydn and D'un cahier d'esquisses are by François-Joël Thiollier on Naxos. La plus que lente is by Noriko Ogawa on BIS (1205), track 13 is sped up by 7.6%, or 23 seconds. The source for the Études is the recording by Margit Rahkonen on Finlandia (4509-9558-1-2).[65]
CACD 91322	Franz Liszt The Etudes, Vol.2	Paganini Études performed by Yuri Didenko on Vista Vera.[66]
CACD 91332	Franz Liszt Operatic Paraphrase & Transcriptions, Vol.1	Track 3, Aida Coro di festa e marcia funebre, is from Giovanni Bellucci's recording on Assai (222172). (This track is also used as track 6 of CACD 91122, Liszt Operatic Paraphrase & Transcriptions Vol.3.)[67] The Verdi/Liszt Salve Maria from I Lombardi and Verdi/Liszt Reminiscenes de Simon Boccanegra are taken from Alberto Reyes' CD on the Connoisseur Society label.[68] The Ernani Paraphrase is by Herbert de Plessis on Pavane. The Sacred Dance and Final Duet from Aida, Rigoletto Paraphrase, and Miserere du Trovatore are all Boris Bloch on Accord.[69]
CACD 91692	An Anthology of Recital Encores, Vol.2	Tracks 4, Schubert/Godowsky Rosamunde, and 10, Albéniz/Godowsky Tango, are taken from CBC/Musica Viva (MVCD1026), by Marc-André Hamelin).[70] Track 8, Rubinstein Scherzo, is taken from Josef Banowetz's recording on Marco Polo (8-223176).[71] Track 9, Busoni Kammer-Fantasie über Carmen, is taken from Russian Disc (RDCD 10026) by Leonid Kuzmin. Track 11, Sinding Rustle of Spring is taken from Naxos by Peter Nagy. Track 12, Rossini-Liszt La Danza, is taken from EMI France (7243-5-55382-2-2) by François-René Duchâble.[72] The Czerny La Ricordanza Variations are performed by Oleg Marshev (Danacord), the Mendelssohn Variations on the Last Rose of Summer by Esther Budjiardo (Pro Piano) and the Paderewski Nocturne by Adam Wodnicki (Altarus).[73]
CACD 91792	Sergei Rachmaninov The Transcriptions	Tracks 1-14 are taken from Harmonia Mundi/Saison Russe (RUS 288 122) performed by Alexander Guindin. (See also CACD 92172 entry.)[citation needed]
CACD 91952	Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - Piano Concerto No.1; Sergei Prokofiev - Piano Concerto No.3; Toccata, Op.11; Mily Balakirev - Islamey: an Oriental Fantasy	The Balakirev is taken from the recording by Michele Campanella on Nuova Era (9708017513599).[74]
CACD 92082	Domenico Scarlatti Keyboard Sonatas, Vol.1	Taken from recordings by Dubravka Tomšič Srebotnjak on Sonia Classic (CD 74537) and other labels (tracks 1, 5-6, 10-17) and Balázs Szokolay on Naxos (8.550252) (the rest).[75]
CACD 92092	Domenico Scarlatti Keyboard Sonatas, Vol.2	Taken from recordings by Patricia Pagny on De Plein Vent (DPV CD9346) (tracks 2-5, 9-11, 13, 16-19), Sergei Babayan on Pro Piano (PPR224506) (tracks 1, 6, 15), and Balázs Szokolay on Naxos (8.550252) (tracks 7, 8, 12, 14).[76]
CACD 92102	Domenico Scarlatti Keyboard Sonatas, Vol.3	Taken from recordings by Prisca Benoit, Maria Tipo, Chitose Okashiro, Balász Szokolay, and Sergei Babayan.[77]
CACD 92172	Sergei Rachmaninov Piano Concertos	Found to be a copy of performances by Yefim Bronfman, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen released by Sony.[citation needed] Coupled with Six moments musicaux, Op.16, from Alexander Guindin's performance on Harmonia Mundi/Saison Russe (RUS 288 122).[78]
CACD 92402	Domenico Scarlatti Keyboard Sonatas, Vol.4	Taken from recordings by Beatrice Long, Benjamin Frith, Evgeny Zarafiants, Konstantin Scherbakov (all on Naxos) and Maria Tipo (on EMI).[79]
CACD 92432	Frédéric Chopin Études	17 of the 27 tracks (all except Op.10 Nos.2 & 6, Op.25 Nos.1 and 7-12; and Nouvelle Etude No.1) are copies of performances by Yuki Matsuzawa on Novalis (150704), in some cases with tempo manipulation.[80]
CACD 92442; 92452	Franz Liszt 75th Anniversary Recital	Scherzo and March from the recording by Jenő Jandó on Hungaroton.[81]
CACD 92492	Enrique Granados Piano Works, Vol.1	The first three pieces of Goyescas come from Hisako Hiseki's recording on La Ma de Guido (LMG 2031).[82]
CACD 92502	Camille Saint-Saëns Complete Works for Piano & Orchestra, Vol.1	Piano Concerto No.4 is from Angela Brownridge's recording on ASV. The whole Concerto is a half step flat on the Hatto CD. Piano Concerto No.5 is the recording by Anna Malikova on Audite.[83]
CACD 92742	Paul Dukas Complete Piano Music	Taken from Tor Espen Aspaas on Simax Classics (PSC1177).[84] One track on the CD, "Pour le tombeau de Paul Dukas" by Manuel de Falla, is taken from Miguel Baselga's recording on BIS (CD 773) (reduced slightly in speed).[85]

[edit] Early discography

The recent release of Arnold Bax's Symphonic Variations in E Major (CACD90212), issued by the Concert Artist label, is confirmed to be a reissue of Hatto's 1970 recording with the Guildford Philharmonic conducted by Vernon Handley, originally issued on Barrington-Coupe's Revolution label.

Hatto's authentic recordings never had a wide distribution, and as far as can be ascertained at this point, the above-mentioned work of Bax was the last to appear on LP in 1970. In the eighties, there were some more works released on tape cassettes (Grieg Piano Concerto and a number of Liszt compositions: the two Piano Concerti, Rigoletto paraphrase, Miserere del Trovatore paraphrase, Totentanz (solo piano version), Seven Hungarian Historical Portraits). The solo piano repertoire of these releases shows works Hatto played also at that period in London on various occasions at Royal Festival Hall and other venues.

Her early releases include:

• Concert Artist 7-inch EPs:
  • Walter Gaze Cooper Piano Concerto #3
  • Elspeth Rhys-Williams, 4 Impressions, 2 Songs
  • Michael Williams Introduction & Allegro for piano & orchestra
• Saga:
  • "Music for the Films" (Addinsell, Bath, Chas. Williams) w/London Variety Theatre Orchestra/Gilbert Vinter
  • Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue w/Hamburg Pro Musica/George Byrd^[86]
  • Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto #2 w/Hamburg Pro Musica/George Hurst
  • Chopin Sonatas #1 & 3
  • Chopin Minor Piano works (Albumblatt, Fugue, Andante cantabile etc.)
• Delta:
  • Mozart Piano Concertos K. 466 & 488 w/Pasdeloup Orchestra/Isaie Disenhaus
  • Mozart Piano Concerto K. 453, Rondo K. 382 w/London Classic Players/David Littaur
• Fidelio:
  • Chopin 10 Nocturnes
  • Gershwin 16 items from the "Song Book"
  • Lecuona assorted piano pieces
• Revolution:
  • Bax Piano Sonata #1, Piano Sonata #4, Toccata, Water Music
  • Bax Symphonic Variations in E w/Guildford Philharmonic/Vernon Handley

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links