WED., MARCH 21, 2007
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The Strange Case of Joyce Hatto
by Justin Davidson
When the British pianist Joyce Hatto died on June 30, 2006, of the cancer that had blackened decades of her life, she was both celebrated and obscure. She was, in fact, celebrated as obscure by some influential connoisseurs, who were intrigued by the story of a non-concertizing musician who had quietly spent 30 years making dazzling recordings. Her obituary in the British newspaper the Guardian proclaimed her “one of the greatest pianists Britain has ever produced” and went on to assert that “her legacy is a discography that in quantity, musical range and consistent quality has been equalled by few pianists in history.” Actually, it was unequalled even by her, since it materialized six months later that her husband and producer William Barrington-Coupe had padded, or perhaps completely fabricated her catalogue by repackaging the work of others. If indeed her talent bloomed in the years after she abandoned the concert stage, it may have left only memories in a living room near Cambridge.
So a pianist who had been bypassed during her lifetime became posthumously notorious for a hoax she may or may not have had anything to do with. Her husband, who claimed he only wanted her to receive the recognition she deserved, instead made sure she was remembered for not being the great pianist that some overeager critics thought she was. And the musicians whose playing was passed off as hers got a spurt of appreciation: instead of being by one pianist we’ve never heard of, it turns out Hatto’s recordings are by many pianists we’ve never heard of — but, man, are they good!
At the very least, Barrington-Coupe displayed good taste. For Liszt’s transcriptions of Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony, for instance, he used Konstantin Scherbakov’s recording, which dances, gazelle-like, through the score’s technical brambles. It’s tempting to think that if Hatto really had been able to play with such delicacy and muscle, she could not have remained so unknown — except that Scherbakov’s is hardly a household name.
Liszt being a something of a specialty in the Hatto/Barrington-Coupe household, they released as their own Laszlo Simon’s recording of the ferociously difficult “Transcendental Etudes,” which has now, thanks to the whole affair, supplanted Claudio Arrau’s version on my iPod. Simon’s is crystalline, searing and demonic — the notes fly like droplets of oil skittering off a hot pan. Dubravka Tomsic’s recording of Domenico Scarlatti Sonatas was likewise a fine choice, though her “Hatto” shapes somewhat longer, suppler phrases than Simon’s.
All this deception hardly seemed worthwhile. The fakes made paltry amounts of money, and the ovations they received were few, though intense. It’s hard even to know what lessons to glean. One conclusion is that experts can be as easily gulled as anyone else, without quite being wrong. Richard Dyer, the long-serving and acute-eared critic of the Boston Globe until a few months ago, wrote while Hatto was still alive that “she boasts a fluent and all-encompassing technique. (The Godowsky studies on the Chopin Etudes, which stand among the supreme keyboard challenges, give her no trouble; she says she's been practicing them since she was 13.)” The athletic fingers to which Dyer was reacting actually belong to several other pianists but his evaluation of what he heard still stands. In 2000, Dyer had reviewed one of the plagiarized discs, Marc-Andre Hamelin’s version of the Godowsky/Chopin etudes, and concluded that the pianist had made “each study not an exercise but a musical statement. Only professional pianists will be aware of the difficulties he has conquered; others will hear only a pianist weaving spells and creating poetry.” So the name on the jewel case changed; the listener’s reaction did not.
Forgery, plagiarism, charlatanism and humbuggery are all so common you’d think we’d be inured. So why does this affair seem so especially sad? Maybe it’s because the fraud is simultaneously tawdry and noble. Barrington-Coupe, the pianist’s knight in blackened armor, surely believed that Hatto should have been a great artist, and would have been, but for the misfortune of disease. He was merely being flexible about destiny — finding a workaround. What harm could come of this sneakiness, he must have asked himself. Surely music sold under any other name would sound as sweet?
So a pianist who had been bypassed during her lifetime became posthumously notorious for a hoax she may or may not have had anything to do with. Her husband, who claimed he only wanted her to receive the recognition she deserved, instead made sure she was remembered for not being the great pianist that some overeager critics thought she was. And the musicians whose playing was passed off as hers got a spurt of appreciation: instead of being by one pianist we’ve never heard of, it turns out Hatto’s recordings are by many pianists we’ve never heard of — but, man, are they good!
At the very least, Barrington-Coupe displayed good taste. For Liszt’s transcriptions of Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony, for instance, he used Konstantin Scherbakov’s recording, which dances, gazelle-like, through the score’s technical brambles. It’s tempting to think that if Hatto really had been able to play with such delicacy and muscle, she could not have remained so unknown — except that Scherbakov’s is hardly a household name.
Liszt being a something of a specialty in the Hatto/Barrington-Coupe household, they released as their own Laszlo Simon’s recording of the ferociously difficult “Transcendental Etudes,” which has now, thanks to the whole affair, supplanted Claudio Arrau’s version on my iPod. Simon’s is crystalline, searing and demonic — the notes fly like droplets of oil skittering off a hot pan. Dubravka Tomsic’s recording of Domenico Scarlatti Sonatas was likewise a fine choice, though her “Hatto” shapes somewhat longer, suppler phrases than Simon’s.
All this deception hardly seemed worthwhile. The fakes made paltry amounts of money, and the ovations they received were few, though intense. It’s hard even to know what lessons to glean. One conclusion is that experts can be as easily gulled as anyone else, without quite being wrong. Richard Dyer, the long-serving and acute-eared critic of the Boston Globe until a few months ago, wrote while Hatto was still alive that “she boasts a fluent and all-encompassing technique. (The Godowsky studies on the Chopin Etudes, which stand among the supreme keyboard challenges, give her no trouble; she says she's been practicing them since she was 13.)” The athletic fingers to which Dyer was reacting actually belong to several other pianists but his evaluation of what he heard still stands. In 2000, Dyer had reviewed one of the plagiarized discs, Marc-Andre Hamelin’s version of the Godowsky/Chopin etudes, and concluded that the pianist had made “each study not an exercise but a musical statement. Only professional pianists will be aware of the difficulties he has conquered; others will hear only a pianist weaving spells and creating poetry.” So the name on the jewel case changed; the listener’s reaction did not.
Forgery, plagiarism, charlatanism and humbuggery are all so common you’d think we’d be inured. So why does this affair seem so especially sad? Maybe it’s because the fraud is simultaneously tawdry and noble. Barrington-Coupe, the pianist’s knight in blackened armor, surely believed that Hatto should have been a great artist, and would have been, but for the misfortune of disease. He was merely being flexible about destiny — finding a workaround. What harm could come of this sneakiness, he must have asked himself. Surely music sold under any other name would sound as sweet?
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