Outrageous musical hoax - uncovered with Adobe Audition

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Rumours have abounded that cult British pianist, the late Joyce Hatto, might not be all she appeared. Investigations I've carried out in conjunction with Gramophone magazine appear to prove without doubt that her CDs are actually doctored copies of other performers' recordings.

With about 100 CDs to her name, and increasing rave reviews, it's bound to rock the world of classical music.

Read Gramophone's breaking news story here

then hear the evidence we present here.

It's been a remarkable week!

P.S. Never try to time stretch a piano track by over 15% - it simply doesn't sound right...

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Read Gramophone's breaking news story here

So how were the tracks identified correctly in itunes to begin with?  Were they actually foolish enough to leave the cd text from the original intact?  Bad to enough to plagiarize, worse to not be very good at concealing it.   
JTC

As I understand it a reviewer popped a Hatto CD in his PC and iTunes suggested it was something else, I presume simply through track durations. The fact that the music matched but the performer didn't raised alarm bells - even though the reviewer in question had previously praised Hatto in a number of erudite publications both in the UK and US...

Hmm... several years ago I went to a lot of trouble to step-enter a large chunk of Chopin mazurka that I can't play into a MIDI sequencer, just so that we could use it in a video production without paying any copyright for using somebody else's recording. Yes, it sounded like a machine was playing it, but hey, it saved a lot of money and that was more important than any artistic niceties at the time.

And now I realise where I went wrong. I should  have used a famous recording with a pitch-shift, and pretended to be William Barrington-Coupe, claiming that my wife had played it.

What's the chances of every recording made that he claims to be her turning out to be somebody else manipulated slightly? Probably find that she couldn't even play chopsticks!

Heh - those involved in classical music recording these days (eg me) are all involved in the 'fraud' of digital editing but this is going rather further, and of course involves the theft of copyright material - which may be pursued by those involved.

However, I suspect a rather sad story may lie behind this.  Perhaps the husband was trying to bolster the wife's reputation for other than straight financial gain during her sickness.  Or they were up to some kind of revenge on the critics or something?  I'm just surprised that it went unproven for so long.

Interesting stuff in http://www.musicweb.uk.net/classrev/2006/Jan06/Hatto2_recordings.htm - the fawning writer seeks to understand how she could have recorded what was claimed.  Even he says that there was a marked change of personality in her later recordings...

From her Guardian obit - "Unlike most artists, her discs are not performances patched together from a number of takes."  Apparently not...

http://www.musicweb.uk.net/classRev/2007/Jan07/Mozart_sonatas_Hatto_IP001052.htm refers to some Mozart CDs of hers being "re-edited and remastered" using newly recorded material.  One wonders what that was about.

From a review of her complete Ravel piano works - apparently recorded over a two day period - "The late Joyce Hatto recorded Ravel's complete piano works over a period of two days in May 2005, when she was 76. No allowances need to be made for age or ill health, because Hatto sounds like a stripling half her age, on prime technical and musical form."

Lastly, you'll love this discussion of Joyce Hatto's prowess in the Godowsky recording which started a couple of days ago amongst participants unaware of her exposure - http://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php?PHPSESSID=715717e3d1ee868b61e4088d414ab4ad&topic=19312.new - like watching a group of people heading towards a banana skin...

Heh - those involved in classical music recording these days (eg me) are all involved in the 'fraud' of digital editing but this is going rather further, and of course involves the theft of copyright material - which may be pursued by those involved.

It's only a fraud if you claim that you haven't edited it, surely? And this is 'passing off' - a whole different ball game.

However, I suspect a rather sad story may lie behind this.  Perhaps the husband was trying to bolster the wife's reputation for other than straight financial gain during her sickness.  Or they were up to some kind of revenge on the critics or something?  I'm just surprised that it went unproven for so long.

Interesting ideas - but how does attempting to bolster her reputation do any good? She would be the only real beneficiary in the short term, and long term discovery will inevitably damage what reputation she had - not much of one anyway, it would seem. She (apparently) stopped playing in public 25 years ago. Do you recall hearing anything about her at the time? I don't (not that this necessarily proves anything, of course). The whole sordid episode puts me in mind of a variation on the 'repainting old masters' scam - only the other way around.

Strikes me that William Barrington-Coupe should have learned something about the persistence of ID3 tags and subcode information before doing anything as foolhardy as he did. When it comes to faking, this bloke is an amateur. I could prove this quite easily by doing a decent fake job of almost anything - and it would be far harder to spot unless I admitted to it. Want the proof? Ask MarkT about singing...

Lastly, you'll love this discussion of Joyce Hatto's prowess in the Godowsky recording which started a couple of days ago amongst participants unaware of her exposure - http://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php?PHPSESSID=715717e3d1ee868b61e4088d414ab4ad&topic=19312.new - like watching a group of people heading towards a banana skin...

Well somebody (you?) has dumped the banana skin in the thread now, of course. From here on, this should make fascinating reading!

Heh, the beans had been spilled when first I saw it - I rather suspect there will be a sudden silence, especially from the guy who was so assertive about her prowess.

Reading her bio material and interviews does make me very surprised that she'd knowingly be involved in what went on, though it is hard to believe she had no idea.   It does indeed mean that her own achievements - which I suspect were quite solid in years gone by - will now be forgotten.

I've racked my brains but can't recall coming across her at Wigmore Hall or whatever.  It would however be interesting to find a genuine recording in my archive!  I might have a search later but I doubt it.

But there is a general prejudice against women - British - pianists.  When you think of all the Proms appearances by Moura Lympany, even late in her life, and her great popularity as a performer, you'd think that some mention of her passing would have been found on the BBC News site - but no, only pop performers seems to get a mention there.

Google reveals that William Barrington-Coupe founded a record label with Joe Meek in 1960.  The same W B-C who is under a cloud concerning this hoax I wonder??  Not that it matters of course...

"In 1960, Meek set up Triumph Records, with classical record producer William Barrington-Coupe. Meek and Barrington-Coupe each owned half, and Meek had full creative control. Recordings from this period include "Angela Jones" and "I See a New World". However, this collapsed after problems with distribution, leaving a number of records unreleased, including the first single by a young actor-turned-singer, John Leyton."

Google reveals that William Barrington-Coupe founded a record label with Joe Meek in 1960.  The same W B-C who is under a cloud concerning this hoax I wonder??  Not that it matters of course...

Interesting. I wonder if Ted Fletcher (Alice, JoeMeek, TFPro and the mic preamps on my E-mu 1820m)  knows anything about this guy? This was around the time he was working for Meek, I believe. Might try to find out...

The Grauniad obit was quite interesting though. If it's not a complete hoax too, she must have had some talent...

In 1956 Joyce married William Barrington-Coupe, the then artists and repertoire manager for Saga Records, who had a penchant for pianists: he subsequently became the first to record the late Lazar Berman in the west, as well as Sergio Fiorentino, Eileen Joyce and Lev Pouishnov. From then on, he acted as her manager, guide and mentor, and it is for his label, Concert Artist Recordings, for which all Joyce's later recordings were made. In its Cambridge studio, she had the luxuries of one of the two Steinways that Rachmaninov played when in the UK, and of being able to record whenever the mood took her or health allowed.

It was for EMI, however, that she recorded in 1970 Bax's Symphonic Variations with the conductor Vernon Handley, the first complete performance since 1920.

I see at least one person has joined that thread refusing to believe that she was a hoax.  His argument is that, in terms of musical interpretation he can HEAR that Hatto is different and superior to the people she is supposed to have copied.

At the risk of being cruel, I wish I had his address.  I have some expensive audio leads I'd like to sell him too!

Bob

Others are now analysing the recordings - see http://www.dasdc.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8631&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Also the Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music, http://www.charm.rhul.ac.uk/content/contact/hatto_cover.html

I see at least one person has joined that thread refusing to believe that she was a hoax.  His argument is that, in terms of musical interpretation he can HEAR that Hatto is different and superior to the people she is supposed to have copied.

At the risk of being cruel, I wish I had his address.  I have some expensive audio leads I'd like to sell him too!

Bob

It appears he has now seen the light...

Assuming that the EMI session information is correct, and independently corroborates that she did indeed record the Bax in 1970, it's looking increasingly likely that the pedigree of anything issued with her name on it after that time should not be taken at face value. Incidentally, I asked my father, who is old enough and has spent enough time with enough piano music, musicians and the RCM to have a pretty good idea of who was really who in the world of UK piano playing throughout the 20th century whether he has ever heard of Hatto, and she rings no bells with him at all. And I don't think that there's much he missed, one way or another.

The real embarrassment must be for all those people who didn't spot this hoax years ago though...