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An op ed article in today's NY Times recounts the Joyce Hatto story.
Follow Ups:
and watch the price of both skyrocket.
REALLY clever.
;-)!
WarmestTimbo in Oz
The Skyptical Mensurer and Audio ScroungerAnd gladly would he learn and gladly teach - Chaucer. ;-)!
'Still not saluting.'
that they are suddenly world famous with enough great reviews for the major labels to come calling and to be in great concert demand. Bully for them!
As I understand it, his excuse was that he had to dub in passages to cover her moans and groans as she battled ovarian cancer.Sorry. Until I see the autopsy report, he is still a lying sack of fertilizer.
Ever hear of Disklavier or Bosendorfer Reproducing Piano? Record the performance onto the hard disk, play it back with the performer elsewhere. Not optimal, but a step up from player piano rolls.
Sounds to me like he was expecting to cash in on sympathy.
He has much to atone for.
He can start by saying, "My life has been a lie. I used artificial preservatives... ."
Strange that I never heard of Ms Hatto and I lived in Germany from 1960 to 1972 and followed English and European musical life very closely. Allegedly she was quite active during this period.There may be nothing of consequence on record by Ms. Hatto whatsoever. Her husband has memorialized a talentless nobody, it appears. Can any artist have a worse legacy?
.
...with 27 more hours to go. I have this CD of Chopin etudes and the playing is very good.Also on Ebay: a bogus Cortot CD from Concert Artist:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Joyce-Hatto-fraud-Rare-Cassettes-labelled-as-Cortot_W0QQitemZ200083670208QQihZ010QQcategoryZ307QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
In Gramophone
Funny; of all the people involved he sends the letter to von Bahr, disclosing he "did it for [his] wife." It was von Bahr who a few days back stated in public that BIS wouldn't be seeking legal action if B-C "did it for his wife."
on the classical music establishment (especially the critics) for failing to give his wife the recognition he feels she deserved. That's why I said below it wasn't all that interesting in the end, except I suppose for the sleuths playing "match that cd."
First he said he couldn't understand what was happening with iTunes, now he says he only patched in passages and discovered how to do basic digital editing "by accident". I can't imagine that track identifiers would pick up on a patchwork track and identify it as one of the tracks the pieces came from. I doubt he ever made the "real" recordings to begin with. Couldn't transfer cassettes to CDs so good? How about using the original master tapes, genius? No, it was cheaper, easier, whatever to hire orchestras and conductors and start all over? GMAFB. I'm sure his wife suffered immeasurably (do we even know for sure that she was indeed real?), but this guy's become just another opportunist.
Well, duh! The guy is a scumbag, and has tainted ANY good name his wife, complicit or not in this piracy, may have had. It's very convenient for him she's dead.Opportunists/swine of this ilk are seldom as smart as they think they are, which would explain his bumbling the cassette/master tapes (but... what mastertapes?) to CD idea. Makes you wonder about the other "artists" on his label too, and what harm he's done to them, if in fact THEY exist...
"I always play jazz records backwards, they sound better that way"
-Thomas Edison
Are ANY of the artists on this label real? If some are, how will this affect their careers?Ya know, it would have been OK with me if the guy just came right out as soon as it was discovered what was going on and said "I did it to prove that many of the elitists and star-makers out there are frauds." He'd look a lot less weasel-like.
dh
Where will this leave the critics who championed Hatto, in the process failing to recognize some of the more well- known artists whose recordings were misrepresented?
Thanks
and has anyone systematically compared those review comments with the apparently pirated "Hatto" recordings? And, who has if ever heard Hatto live and reviewed her work? It should have been obvious.
N/T
"I always play jazz records backwards, they sound better that way"
-Thomas Edison
a critic who's heard maybe 60 versions of a given Chopin etude for not remembering each one note-for-note.Betcha they run all their discs by itunes from now on, however!
Meanwhile, Gramophone has been hemorrhaging credibility for ages--they'll save themselves by being first to report "the truth" as if they weren't taken in by it.
Tough crowd for the "tired" and "not well" Barrington-Coupe here, though. Wonder if he'll get his "little peace."
...why did the critics find the music so wonderful when they believed it was performed by Hatto and so (apparently) forgettable from the actual performers???
z
nt
were so "incredible" (sic!:-), then why weren't the originals reviewed that way, or held in such high regard? Yes, the originals were known, and were by some major artists but...Hatto was being hyped by "those in the know" as the second coming -- and they now have egg on their faces. To you point, the original recordings would border on legendary if they had Hatto's face on the cover? Hatto was embraced as a novelty, it seems to me ("greatest unknown pianist"). Some folks don't even need to LISTEN to recordings to take THAT kind of bait -- and there it is!
I should hire you to be my AA post ghost-writer! :)
kerr,Reading reviews and comments, it seems the reviewers were especially impressed by the versatile, idiomatic performances- all supposedly from one person. On one recording "Hatto" was the perfect Chopin solist, then an astounding Beethoven concerto player, then a Debussy expert. Plus, over 100 CDs appeared in the short time of a few years.
I think you would find that the performances selected by B-C were all highly regarded originally. As the cost was the same for each version and he wanted to create this artificial glorious legacy for his wife, he may as well pick the best!
Cheers,
Bambi B
Makes sense. She all of a sudden became not only highly prolific but nigh well perfect at all she touched.I'm just surprised this scam lasted this long. I would imagine it's a source of embarrassment to the music reviewers.
N/T
"I always play jazz records backwards, they sound better that way"
-Thomas Edison
suggestivity... just like many other items in audio ;-))
Would you mind using suggesitivity on me so that I can buy a Yorx rack system and believe it's transparent to the source? :)
.
"Hard to fault a critic who's heard maybe 60 versions of a given
Chopin etude for not remembering each one note for note"...I tend to agree, but hesitated to say so.
This story has had me fascinated for the past week or so. I think that, more than anything strictly musical, it says much about the star making machinery of certain elements of the business. And it says loads about what certain elements of the listening public really want.
Thanks,
"I did it for my wife"I don't by it. The sheer number of recordings he pirated is a symbol of his greed. Even if he only sold 3000 recordings, he still probably made $30,000 to $40,000 in profit. He was selling the CDs at $20 a pop, and the only overhead he has was replication, packaging, and distribution. The big cost, labor and related recording fees, he got for free.
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