[Sordel]

Another thing ... am I the only Head-Fier thinking about buying one of these CDs? If they're all good recordings, there must be a curiosity value in having an example of the (un)real thing ...

... ah, but all the sites that are supposed to be stocking Concert Artists CDs are mysteriously silent on the subject of Joyce Hatto: it seems that the boat of opportunistic purchase has sailed.

 

[Bunnyears]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sordel /img/forum/go_quote.gif Another thing ... am I the only Head-Fier thinking about buying one of these CDs? If they're all good recordings, there must be a curiosity value in having an example of the (un)real thing ...

Some of them have become very desirable to collectors and prices are rising on ebay. I wouldn't be interested in overpriced, plagiarized recordings, especially if you can get the original cheaper.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigshot /img/forum/go_quote.gif This is the most entertaining thing I've followed in the news since Michael Jackson. See ya Steve

Or Milli Vanilli? It sure beats discussing the Scooter Libby case.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sordel /img/forum/go_quote.gif Since I posted the quotation from Wikipedia above, the article has changed many times, so perhaps that paragraph was defamatory or simply not true. Rather nicely, for those of a schadenfreude turn of mind, there's a link to this really rather intriguing rave review from the Boston Globe in 2005. What the review makes clear, I think, which has perhaps not been clear in early discussion of the story, is that Hatto herself must have been implicated in the deception, at least to the extent that she gave a full account of herself to the interviewer. It seems unlikely that the husband (always assuming that he knew that there were erroneous recordings going out in her name, which is not yet proven) would allow an open interview where the critic might have inquired about some work (say, a concerto) that she knew that she had not recorded. Unless she was at some level "in" on the scam. But then, the entire story is pretty unlikely, so perhaps that is what happened.

What is not clear to me is whether anyone actually physically saw Joyce Hatto since her retirement from the concert stage. Certainly, there have been no pictures since the early 1970s. She could have been dead or in a Terry Schiavo style coma all these years for all we know. It seems that all her interviews and communications with the world had been via telephone or letter. If someone has physically seen her, then would someone please tell me who did so and when!

Creepy thought: What if her husband was doing the talking in a disguised voice? No one has said that they actually sat with her in person. What if Barrington Coupe is just a creepy Norman Bates type of person with a skeleton in the basement? What if he was dressing up to pretend he was Joyce Hatto? According to her obit in the Telegraph, she was diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer around or before 1970. That disease kills, and kills fast. It's inconceivable that she managed to fight it off for 30 years with no article in the Lancet.

 

[Sordel]

The "survival" of Joyce Hatto becomes more likely in the light of a fascinating account of his experiences by one of those duped by the hoaxer(s). Christopher Howell is one of the Musicweb critics who gave "her" recordings good reviews, and he publishes what correspondence he had with Hatto and her husband in an essay that one cannot read at times without cringing with embarrassment on his part. If all the critics are as honest as Howell in laying bare the mechanics of their deception, then the truth of the matter should come quite rapidly to light.

Howell's reading of the story (on current evidence) is that Hatto was living in the past and unable to come to terms with the reality around her: a fact that was either exploited or simply humoured by Barrington-Coupe. He suggests that the objective in producing faked recordings may not originally have been for financial gain. If so, we are confronted with an irony indeed, since it is likely that the people who make money out of Hatto's recorded legacy (lawyers and eBayers) will have in many cases even less the souls of great musicians than the original forgers.

 

[AlanY]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sordel /img/forum/go_quote.gif The "survival" of Joyce Hatto becomes more likely in the light of a fascinating account of his experiences by one of those duped by the hoaxer(s). Christopher Howell is one of the Musicweb critics who gave "her" recordings good reviews, and he publishes what correspondence he had with Hatto and her husband in an essay that one cannot read at times without cringing with embarrassment on his part.

That's a really fascinating article. Worth the (long) read.

 

[Bunnyears]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sordel /img/forum/go_quote.gif The "survival" of Joyce Hatto becomes more likely in the light of a fascinating account of his experiences by one of those duped by the hoaxer(s). Christopher Howell is one of the Musicweb critics who gave "her" recordings good reviews, and he publishes what correspondence he had with Hatto and her husband in an essay that one cannot read at times without cringing with embarrassment on his part. If all the critics are as honest as Howell in laying bare the mechanics of their deception, then the truth of the matter should come quite rapidly to light. Howell's reading of the story (on current evidence) is that Hatto was living in the past and unable to come to terms with the reality around her: a fact that was either exploited or simply humoured by Barrington-Coupe. He suggests that the objective in producing faked recordings may not originally have been for financial gain. If so, we are confronted with an irony indeed, since it is likely that the people who make money out of Hatto's recorded legacy (lawyers and eBayers) will have in many cases even less the souls of great musicians than the original forgers.

Howell would do well to read an earlier piece on Hattogate where it is revealed that WB-C already had been convicted of fraud earlier in his life.

Also, apparently all of Howell's correspondence from JH was produced on a laser printer using a "handwriting" style font and the signature was a facsimile signature. He thinks it was in order to give the real JH credible deniability. I suspect it was WB-C pretending to be JH. Btw, if JH had kept a journal or diary, all of the early events would have been noted. As her withdrawal from performing and the musical establishment was very complete after 1976, it would also explain why the writer is so vague and error filled about events more recent.

Here's what I think: It's clear that whoever wrote those letters did not have recent contact with the performing musical establishment after 1976 as demonstrated by the unfamiliarity with the more recent events. JH left a number of annotated scores (good source for his musical insights) one of which WB-C claimed as proof for the Godowsky recordings (identified as by Carlos Granté). Those particular scores were, in his words, annotated by JH at the age of 16. Now, this is pure speculation, but if JH had kept a journal or diary, this could have been the source of all of the reminiscences peppering her correspondence. This is something WB-C would have had access to which would not have had anything pertinent to the more recent events after her withdrawal from the musical scene.

Clearly Howell wanted to believe that the real JH had no involvement because he didn't want to conclude she was a willing participant in the fraud. He cannot justify this on the basis of their correspondence so he speculates that she may have lost touch with reality as a result of her illness and her poor husband might have been manufacturing recordings in order to keep her happy in her illness. More likely, WB-C found he had a failing business, no great source of income and a wife whose care was eating the small resources he had. With a record label and a little know how, he decided either with or without her connivance, to use his wife's name to derive a bit of income by publishing pirated recordings under her name on his private label. When the concerto recordings (among the earliest) were accepted without any doubts by reviewers and the public, he was emboldened and then looked for recordings that were more likely escape notice. He then got greedy, and believing in his own success then started producing more and more plagiarized recordings, each one a gem of performance. As the reviewers kept on singing their praises, eventually the sales picked up, and doubts started to surface. There is nothing like the blogosphere to show up fraud and lies. The rest as they say, is history. Eventually someone loved the Liszt TEs so much, he decided to rip them to his ipod and lo, Gracenote identified it as someone else's recording.

I'm sure that story is as good as any. The other alternative story is that JH was embittered by early criticism which she became obsessive about during a prolonged period of agoraphobia (or some such neurosis.) No one had seen JH in the flesh in years before her death, nor spoken with her face to face. I hate making psychological diagnoses of people I've never known, but as I've remarked before, her history seems more in keeping with agoraphobia than cancer which is why I'm so skeptical of it. As a result of the stress of both her neurosis and the discovery of finding herself stricken with ovarian cancer, she engaged in this fraud with a vengeance to wreak havoc on the critical establishment she perceived as having ended her career prematurely. If this was true, then why not write her own correspondence, or at least sign it?

There is supposedly an interview in April Gramophone with JH, but so far it's not clear whether this was a face to face interview of merely another telephone chat. If someone had a face to face with JH I'd be very surprised; she certainly could not have been looking very well in her last year of life. For a woman who wouldn't let a picture of herself after the early 1970s be published, this sounds even more out of character.

 

[Bunnyears]

duplicate post

 

[eyeresist]

1. Hatto's husband had a conviction for tax avoidance, not fraud.

2. According to Hurwitz, Hatto's Saint-Saens 2nd concerto was actually Collard/Previn, which is mind-boggling considering that the Collard would be an obvious choice for reviewers doing a comparison.

3. The name of the record label, Concert Artist, just begs to be abbreviated to Con Artist.

4. Maybe Hatto's story will get Helen Mirren another Oscar in the near future?

 

[Bunnyears]

The story has so many twists and turns it really will make a fine movie of the week.

If anyone has been following David Hurwitz, he has gone from his holier than thou "we helped unmask the fraud, but Gramophone rushed to judgement -- there's a story of human tragedy here" to "this may have been a case of a husband trying to console a gravely ill wife (she's been fighting terminal cancer for 30 «?!» years)" to "this was a victimless crime, so don't complain. I love my JH records anyway (and the people on the internet who are angry about this are protozoans)" to "Barrington-Coupe was a lying, deceiving conman all along and JH must have been involved as she contributed to the liner notes (and I'm worried about the legitimate cds in CA's catalog including those by Fiorentino)."

You can read his pieces on the business and watch how his viewpoint evolved, and worse, you can see how his ugly persona shines through. I certainly have lost respect for him as a critic, and a human being.

Re: Fiorentino -- his recordings were the ones that were used for WB-C's first con which sent him to prison. Here's an excerpt from the wickipedia article on Paul Procopolis:

Paul Procopolis: non-existent classical pianist.

With the advent of cheap long-playing records, unscrupulous companies issued records of material under pseudomyms to avoid paying royalties or because they did not own the copyright to the recordings. In the case of Paul Procopolis, the reasons for the recording company (Saga) issuing recordings pseudonomously are unknown, as they would have had the copyright to at least some of the material.

Saga, ofcourse, was one of the first record labels where WB-C was associated, and the Paul Procopolis case is the fraud that sent him to jail.

Here's another article from the Daily Mail which details some unsavory truths about both Hatto and Barrington-Coupe:

Suspicions are growing that Hatto, who struggled throughout her career to earn real respect and acclaim, deliberately took part in a massive fraud to create a reputation she never deserved and to take revenge on the classical music industry.

According to Gramophone, Coupe not only lifted works of international pianists but also recordings made by orchestras and conductors.

Meanwhile, the story of JH's struggle with terminal cancer which caused her to withdraw from the concert stage is now in great doubt as well. No one struggles with a "terminal" disease for 30 years. If you live that long, it's not terminal and it certainly can't be ovarian cancer, an aggressive cancer with survival rates at best of 5 years. To make it even worse, Jessica Duchen, a British journalist and classical music reporter was contacted by a "doctor" who claimed to have treated JH for 14 years for ovarian cancer at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge. She published this on her blog (http://jessicamusic.blogspot.com/) and everyone was ready to take it at face value until a British physician (Carl) questioned the story and told her that it would be a serious breach of ethics for any physician who cared for any patient to contact someone to discuss a medical history without the permission of the next of kin. Duchen savaged him on her blog, but eventually Addenbrooke's issued a statement and she withdrew the story. I have my own suspicions as to the identity of the man who called her, and I doubt he was a doctor.

One last twist to the whole story has to be told as well. I came across an internet blog (http://www.newscientist.com/blog/tec...cal-fraud.html) while looking for information about the itunes connection (I get wrong information for recordings all the time when I rip cds in Itunes) and came across a blog that also was interested in this. From there I got a link to emusic.com forum and found a posting by Robert von Bahr, one of David Hurwitz's professional friends. He is the founder of Bis records and the publisher of the Laszlo Simon Liszt Transcendental Etudes recording ripped off by WB-C. Here is what he posted at emusic under the screen name "bissie":

Yes, that remains to be seen, and therefore I had better come clean at once:
As a matter of fact, there was no László Simon - or so I thought. I recorded those Transcendental Etudes myself but, not wanting to appear in person on my label, according to my apparent modesty, I invented LS. You have no idea how flabbergasted I was, when it turned out that there does exist one pianist László Simon. So we're talking about a triple hoax here and I am of course very proud of the accolades that have been heaped over my reading - that is, if indeed it is my reading. Having found out about the living pianist LS, I didn't really feel I had any choice but to let him record the Etudes as well, and what do you know - they came out e-x-a-c-t-l-y like mine, down to the smallest sound-wave. Talk about coincidences. I cannot now for the life of me remember which pressing is which, and, basically, it doesn't matter. However, in order to enjoy my just fame, I have just applied for a name-change, to Rejoice von Hatto

Best - Robert (as long as it lasts)

I posted the above on the Bulletin Board at MusicWeb and here is what Len Mullenger posted about it:

I removed a mailing to this Bulletin Board from "Bunnie" because I thought it was a hoax. I apologize to Bunnie.
The message was to the effect that the Laslo Simon Liszt Trancendental studies on Bis was not by Laslo Simon at all but was actually recorded by Robert von Bahr himself. The poster quoted a posting from Bissie on
http://www.emusic.com/messageboard/v...cId=8816#57780

Yes, that remains to be seen, and therefore I had better come clean at once:
As a matter of fact, there was no László Simon - or so I thought. I recorded those Transcendental Etudes myself but, not wanting to appear in person on my label, according to my apparent modesty, I invented LS. You have no idea how flabbergasted I was, when it turned out that there does exist one pianist László Simon. So we're talking about a triple hoax here and I am of course very proud of the accolades that have been heaped over my reading - that is, if indeed it is my reading. Having found out about the living pianist LS, I didn't really feel I had any choice but to let him record the Etudes as well, and what do you know - they came out e-x-a-c-t-l-y like mine, down to the smallest sound-wave. Talk about coincidences. I cannot now for the life of me remember which pressing is which, and, basically, it doesn't matter. However, in order to enjoy my just fame, I have just applied for a name-change, to Rejoice von Hatto

Best - Robert (as long as it lasts)

Patrick Waller, Assistant Webmaster for MusicWeb, checked with Robert von Bahr as we though someone was trying to impersonate him and he replied

Dear Mr. Waller,

no, no hoax, but, after having had my first holiday in 8 years entirely
destroyed by this affair (instead of meeting with my family I spent more
than 9 hours daily in a dark room with a telephone and computer for more
than a week in Israel), answering phone calls, giving interviews, writing
statements and articles, I finally gave in and tried to find some humour in
this sordid business.

I am afraid that the rubbish you linked to is genuine, if regretful. I
wouldn't mind in the least if it were taken away. Unfirtunately I cannot do
so myself.
At the time I thought it was funny. I don't anymore, but, it is mine,
nobody else's.

I would be interested to read the deleted entry, if you still have access to
it.

Very best - Robert von Bahr, aka bissie.

Curiouser and Curiouser.

 

[Riordan]

another amusing angle is the ongoing debates on rec.music.classical.recordings, the newsgroup that started both the hatto hype and the hatto rumors long before grammophone had proof for the fraud. (the sound engineer responsible for finding the proof is a member there, as is the 'original doubting thomas'.)

enter the 'hatto cult': apparently among the fans there were two ringleaders claiming personal acquaintance with joyce hatto: one the archetypical usenet meanie, a rabid antisemite and all-round bully, the other a well-spoken gentleman full of amusing if not-quite-true anecdotes. the latter's very existence is now being questioned by some, speculation abounds...

if you have the stomach for usenet, this makes for some fascinating reading

 

[Bunnyears]

Riordan,

Could you post a link to that discussion? I'd love reading it, although I don't want to post there.

 

[eyeresist]

Interesting factoid about "László Simon", Bunnyears! This is starting to make the illuminati look like the postal service.

At the risk of getting snared in triviality, I want to correct your assertion that Barrington-Coupe was jailed for musical fraud. The Daily Mail article you linked to states clearly:

...he began importing radios from Hong Kong, which he sold in London markets and by mail order, but fell foul of the law when he failed to pay purchase tax.

On May 17, 1966, ... Coupe and four other defendants were found guilty of failing to pay £84,000 in purchase tax - more than £1 million in today's money.

 

[Bunnyears]

Quote:

Originally Posted by eyeresist /img/forum/go_quote.gif Interesting factoid about "László Simon", Bunnyears! This is starting to make the illuminati look like the postal service. At the risk of getting snared in triviality, I want to correct your assertion that Barrington-Coupe was jailed for musical fraud. The Daily Mail article you linked to states clearly: ...he began importing radios from Hong Kong, which he sold in London markets and by mail order, but fell foul of the law when he failed to pay purchase tax. On May 17, 1966, ... Coupe and four other defendants were found guilty of failing to pay £84,000 in purchase tax - more than £1 million in today's money.

On May 17, 1966, after what was then the longest-running and most expensive trial at the Old Bailey, costing the taxpayer £150,000. Coupe and four other defendants were found guilty of failing to pay £84,000 in purchase tax - more than £1million in today's money.

Coupe, then aged 34, was fined £3,600 and jailed for 12 months. His company W.H. Barrington-Coupe Ltd was fined £4,000 and finally wound up in 1971.

Summing up, Judge Alan King-Hamilton said: 'These were blatant and impertinent frauds, carried out in my opinion rather clumsily. But such was your conceit that you thought yourself smart enough to get away with it.'

WB-C was tried for tax evasion in much the same manner that Al Capone was. Capone didn't pay tax on his racketeering, but they couldn't get enough information to try him on those crimes. In much the same way, it was easier to try Barrington-Coupe for failure to pay purchase tax (a form of tax evasion) which was very clear cut than to prosecute him for the fraudulent scheme in the execution of which he paid no taxes. In handing down the conviction and penalty, the judge made no secret that the real crime was the frauds.

Btw, at that point Hatto had been married to Coupe for around 10 years (since 1956).

 

[eyeresist]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bunnyears /img/forum/go_quote.gif WB-C was tried for tax evasion in much the same manner that Al Capone was. ... it was easier to try Barrington-Coupe for failure to pay purchase tax (a form of tax evasion) which was very clear cut than to prosecute him for the fraudulent scheme in the execution of which he paid no taxes.

Can you provide a cite that specifies the musical thefts as being related to the trial for tax evasion? I believe that the judge is referring to tax fraud rather than musical plagiarism.

 

[Riordan]

bunnyears,
i hope this works for you: (it links to google, so no newsreader is needed)
http://tinyurl.com/2y8crm

this wasn't the first thread - but it starts with the grammophone article and has a lot of juicy bits

 

[Bunnyears]

Quote:

Originally Posted by eyeresist /img/forum/go_quote.gif Can you provide a cite that specifies the musical thefts as being related to the trial for tax evasion? I believe that the judge is referring to tax fraud rather than musical plagiarism.

I didn't relate the musical thefts to the fraud case, you are doing that. Btw, while you are at it, look up Paul Procopolis on the internet. Old Coupe was involved with more than just music frauds.