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Shades of Pierre Menard
The riveting music story of the moment is the Joyce Hatto hoax. Gramophone...has revealed that several recordings attributed to the late, cultishly admired British pianist are identical to discs previously issued on other labels — including, remarkably, Yefim Bronfman and Esa-Pekka Salonen's well-regarded 1990 recording of the Rachmaninov Third Piano Concerto. The Gracenote database on iTunes exposed the fraud. The possibility arises that many or most of Hatto's hundred-odd releases on her husband's Concert Artist label are stolen property. Not having heard any Hatto discs, I can't begin to judge what's real and what's not, but it's a safe guess that anything conducted by the elusive René Köhler (scroll down this page for Concert Artist's unverified biography) is a fake; in one case he's Salonen, in another he's Bernard Haitink...Jessica Duchen links to an internet discussion where one piano expert is quoted as saying that Minoru Nojima's Liszt playing is "too clinical" and expressing a preference for Hatto — not aware that he's discussing the same performance!
Here is the link, which includes further references, and also this account. It should be noted that Hatto's discs had no real chance of making money and in fact cost some money to put out; her husband created an independent label for the music. In any case, I have heard Ms. Hatto play (albeit under different names), and the results were very impressive. She can play just about anything, and she has mastered many styles. Here is an earlier and indeed glowing review of Ms. Hatto's work. She was sadly unable to play in public, citing an unpredictable illness.
Addendum: I've been told by credible sources that an economist once submitted a paper to the QJE which the journal already had published, albeit by the real author. The journal at least had the good sense to accept and publish the work again.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on February 21, 2007 at 11:20 AM in Music | Permalink
Comments
It should be noted that Hatto's discs had no real chance of making money and in fact cost some money to put out
Really? What is your reference for that?
It is exceedingly cheap to have CDs professionally pressed and packaged, somewhere around $1 per CD. (Just Google CD pressing.) Sell each one for $15 and that's a pretty nice profit, especially if you are stealing the music and don't have to pay to record it.
You don't have to sell many CDs with that scheme to make a nice pile of money. Sell 5000 CDs and you've made over $50,000.
I don't have any first-hand knowledge so maybe they really did lose money; please fill me in.
Posted by: bob montgomery at Feb 21, 2007 12:25:54 PM
I had to blog this one just because I was so pleased with myself at spotting the unsubtle reference...and so pleased that somebody would use it. I loved Borges.
Posted by: jens at Feb 21, 2007 1:08:20 PM
I have heard Ms. Hatto play (albeit under different names), and the results were very impressive. She can play just about anything, and she has mastered many styles.
When was this ? Given that none of her recordings have as of yet proven to be genuine.
Posted by: Chris Stiles at Feb 21, 2007 2:13:56 PM
Not true, her Bax's Symphonic Variations are genuine.
Posted by: Jay at Feb 21, 2007 2:29:42 PM
Not true, her Bax's Symphonic Variations are genuine.
In view of what we have found out so far I don't believe that is a safe assumption at all. That may well turn out to be the case, but let us wait and see. So far there appears to be as much misinformation floating around about this recording as information.
In any case, Tyler claimed he had heard her play multiple styles (presumably multiple composers) 'albeit under different names'. The qualifier doesn't inspire confidence.
Posted by: Chris Stiles at Feb 21, 2007 3:07:50 PM
Doesn't this show that classical performance has progressed too far towared technical perfection to be very interesting anymore? There used to be only a handful of people who could get all the notes right, but now there are so many perfect recordings that nobody can tell them apart.
Posted by: Steve Sailer at Feb 21, 2007 5:04:22 PM
Is the QJE comment a joke? If not, which articles?
Posted by: David Zetland at Feb 21, 2007 5:57:55 PM
Somehow, the QJE story reminds me of a Jerzy Kozinski story. In which his first novel (The Psinted Bird) was retyped (with his permission) and submitted to a variety of publishers. They (almost?) all rejected and, as I recall, even the original publisher's readers did not recognize it.
Posted by: Donald A. Coffin at Feb 22, 2007 10:53:00 AM
Tyler,
Please clarify: did you see Ms. Hatto perform in person, albeit not "in public?"
Thanks
Posted by: Timothy at Feb 22, 2007 12:04:43 PM
Doesn't this show that classical performance has progressed too far towared technical perfection to be very interesting anymore? There used to be only a handful of people who could get all the notes right, but now there are so many perfect recordings that nobody can tell them apart.
Define perfection. There are numerous recordings of a given piece in which all the notes are correct - at that point the separation lies in interpretative flair - and this is quite often unmistakable.
No. This entire episode points to the fact that males always over-engineer their hobbies, and as a side effect revel in finding the obscure for it's own sake. It's alpha-maledom played out over hobbies and interests. Take a few moments to reflect on the atmosphere inside the main classical newsgroup - it's fairly similiar to your local group of male real ale fanatics/twitchers/bbq fanatics etc. Once the obscure is found, a suitable post facto justification can always be thought up.
Posted by: Chris Stiles at Feb 22, 2007 1:08:24 PM
大家好,我是臺灣人,從臺灣一個人搬家來到美國,環境很陌生,感覺很孤單。以前在臺灣幾家知名的徵信社工作過,我是一個優秀的徵信工作者,希望早點找到適合自己的工作。希望通過貴站,認識更多的朋友。
Posted by: 謝文豪 at Apr 1, 2008 9:52:17 PM





