Joyce Hatto

Joyce Hatto (born September 5, 1928 in London , † June 30, 2006 in Cambridge ) was a British pianist . She became famous when copies of CDs by other pianists came onto the market under her name, caused a sensation in the classical music scene and were highly praised by international music critics. The dizziness was not revealed until a few months after her death.

After her official biography, she studied with Mátyás Seiber and Paul Hindemith , and performed with conductors such as Victor de Sabata , Thomas Beecham , Paul Kletzki and Jean Martinon . In 1979 she withdrew from the public eye because of cancer.

From 2003 the Concert Artist Recordings label released over 100 CD recordings by Hatto, mostly from the period from 1990 onwards, whereby - unlike pianists often the case - not a single piece can be found in multiple interpretations. In February 2007, Gramophone magazine published an article in which it was found that some of these recordings have striking similarities with older publications by other pianists and are possibly just alien copies.

Most of the CDs that William Barrington-Coupe, the pianist's husband, manipulated in his recording studio in Royston, Hertfordshire and released as his wife's recordings under a new label, have now been identified with certainty using new methods of sound engineering. In addition to a large number of pianists, more or less forgotten today, there are also well-known names among them. Recordings by Leif Ove Andsnes , Wladimir Dawidowitsch Aschkenasi , Yefim Bronfman , Marc-André Hamelin , Jewgeni Igorewitsch Kissin and Ingrid Haebler were electronically refreshed and successfully marketed as Hatto recordings.

At the end of February 2007, the husband confessed to having published the recordings of strange pianists under the name of his wife. The reason he gave was to give her the impression that she had graduated successfully. She didn't know anything about her husband's action. In retrospect he regrets that this has damaged rather than promoted the reputation of his deceased wife.

The only known CD recorded by Hatto himself is the "Symphonic Variations" by the English composer Sir Arnold Bax .

literature

• Manfred Papst: A fraud of rare audacity . In: NZZ am Sonntag , March 4, 2007
• Alfred Brendel : Naive belief in miracles. The case of the British pianist Joyce Hatto . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung , No. 303. December 31, 2009. p. 23.

Web links

• The Great Classical Piano Swindle - Article in The Economist's quarterly magazine , Intelligent Life Vol. 1, Issue 1, Fall 2007, pp. 52–58 (PDF, English; 9.9 MB).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Gramophone article ( Memento of the original from February 19, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
2. ↑ Message on yahoo.de  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
3. ↑ Brendel 2009.