Producer admits passing off pianists' recordings as his wife's
Thursday, March 1, 2007
A CLASSICAL music producer has admitted to deception by passing off recordings by famous pianists as the work of his late wife who, he said, wanted to end her cancer-ridden life "on a high note". The confession by William Barrington-Coupe that he released other musicians' recordings under the name of his pianist wife, Joyce Hatto, has shocked the classical music world.
In the course of the long-running scandal, the 76-year-old denied all wrongdoing when audio experts commissioned by Gramophone music magazine revealed that several of the 119 Hatto CDs were identical to recordings by other musicians.
Barrington-Coupe attempted to transfer the original tape cassette recordings to the more modern CD technology, but could not do it well enough and so decided to rerecord her work.
By the time he had mastered the CD technology, his wife was so ill that she would grunt in pain as she played, and despite still practising rigorously, was suffering a great deal, the Guardian said Tuesday.
Struggling to find a way to cover the passages where Hatto would call out in pain, Barrington-Coupe would search for pianists with the same style and sound as Hatto to fill in the patches. "Soon Hatto's recordings would serve as a blueprint to be overlaid by similar recordings by other pianists," wrote the Guardian.
Gramophone found that an alleged Hatto rendition of Franz Liszt's Transcendental Studies was exactly the same as a recording by Hungarian pianist Laszlo Simon.
Another disc, a "Hatto" recital of Rachmaninov, was identified by the iTunes programme on Gramophone's computer as a work by Yefim Bronfman.
Hatto, regarded as one of Britain's most talented post-war pianists, died aged 77 in June 2006, unaware of her husband's deception.
"What I've done is completely wrong, but I didn't go in for wholehearted piracy. It wasn't a question of putting other people's performances out but covering little, involuntarily noises. She had so much pain," Barrington-Coupe said in a letter to recording company BIS records published on Tuesday.
"I'm desperately unhappy that foolish decisions I made then to make her last months happier have dragged her name into the mire as well."
He had wanted to give his wife the "illusion of a great end to an unfairly overlooked career", and knew that she had been "desperate to finish her life on a high note". Barrington-Coupe, who was sentenced for tax evasion in 1966, has said he was not motivated by money and had made a "thumping great loss" after selling just 8,500 CD's.
"I don't consider I've hurt anybody. A lot of attention has been drawn to forgotten artists," he was quoting as saying in the Daily Telegraph.
James Inverne, editor of Gramophone, said: "This is the latest, emotional twist in a story which has amazed and shocked the entire classical music world and beyond. There has never been a music scandal quite like it." DPA
In the course of the long-running scandal, the 76-year-old denied all wrongdoing when audio experts commissioned by Gramophone music magazine revealed that several of the 119 Hatto CDs were identical to recordings by other musicians.
Barrington-Coupe attempted to transfer the original tape cassette recordings to the more modern CD technology, but could not do it well enough and so decided to rerecord her work.
By the time he had mastered the CD technology, his wife was so ill that she would grunt in pain as she played, and despite still practising rigorously, was suffering a great deal, the Guardian said Tuesday.
Struggling to find a way to cover the passages where Hatto would call out in pain, Barrington-Coupe would search for pianists with the same style and sound as Hatto to fill in the patches. "Soon Hatto's recordings would serve as a blueprint to be overlaid by similar recordings by other pianists," wrote the Guardian.
Gramophone found that an alleged Hatto rendition of Franz Liszt's Transcendental Studies was exactly the same as a recording by Hungarian pianist Laszlo Simon.
Another disc, a "Hatto" recital of Rachmaninov, was identified by the iTunes programme on Gramophone's computer as a work by Yefim Bronfman.
Hatto, regarded as one of Britain's most talented post-war pianists, died aged 77 in June 2006, unaware of her husband's deception.
"What I've done is completely wrong, but I didn't go in for wholehearted piracy. It wasn't a question of putting other people's performances out but covering little, involuntarily noises. She had so much pain," Barrington-Coupe said in a letter to recording company BIS records published on Tuesday.
"I'm desperately unhappy that foolish decisions I made then to make her last months happier have dragged her name into the mire as well."
He had wanted to give his wife the "illusion of a great end to an unfairly overlooked career", and knew that she had been "desperate to finish her life on a high note". Barrington-Coupe, who was sentenced for tax evasion in 1966, has said he was not motivated by money and had made a "thumping great loss" after selling just 8,500 CD's.
"I don't consider I've hurt anybody. A lot of attention has been drawn to forgotten artists," he was quoting as saying in the Daily Telegraph.
James Inverne, editor of Gramophone, said: "This is the latest, emotional twist in a story which has amazed and shocked the entire classical music world and beyond. There has never been a music scandal quite like it." DPA
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