Well, it is certainly true that, as the Gramophone article relates, the spectre of this possible "hoax" was raised some while ago and, when the author and critic Jeremy Nicholas challenged anyone claiming to possess supportive evidence to come forward with it, the whole thing seemed to die a fairly swift death; now it has raised its head again, "courtesy" of Andrew Rose at Pristine Audio, it has been taken seriously enough by Gramophone to endorse the possibility by publishing the article cited earlier. Whether Gramophone really has substantially more evidence up its sleeve for the advertised "larger article" promised for next month's issue remains to be seen.
So, if we all take off (or do not don in the first place) our conspiracy theory hat(to)s and try to approach this with as much pragmatism and sanguinity as possible, what can we reasonably assume from the story so far?
There does appear to be sufficient evidence that Joyce Hatto actually was a pianist of some considerable prowess who was active at least between the latter 1940s and some time in the 1960s or later and that the work that became her calling card was the very substantial Symphonic Variations for piano and orchestra by Bax. Before Hatto played it, only Bax's wife Harriet Cohen (for whom it was written) appears to have done so - and she only ever played a severely truncated version, so Hatto is believed to have been the first pianist ever to have played the full original version and few pianists have ever played it since.
Clearly, some painstaking research about her performing career would not come amiss in that it would help to fill out some gaps in general knowledge of her work.
In the 1950s, she is said to have been the first pianist ever to have performed the complete Beethoven Symphonies in Liszt's piano transcriptions and she is supposed to have broadcast them all on BBC at around that time; the broadcasts were also reckoned to have been the first time that these works had been transmitted in their entirety.
It is understood that Ms Hatto fought a battle with cancer for some 36 years until her death last June (this is an inordinately long time, but such things are not unheard of) and that, during this time, she abandoned her performing career but began the series of recordings some time in the 1980s. It is also said that Ms Hatto was quite exceptionally self-effacing.
In what would by anyone's standards seem to be a colossal and wide-ranging recorded repertoire, two substantial works perhaps stand out most significantly - Messiaen's Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jésus and the complete Chopin/Godowsky Studies; there have been a fair few recordings of the former over the past couple of decades or so, but only four of the latter (by just three pianists - Madge, Grante[2] and Hamelin) at any time - and only one pianist besides those three (Libetta) is known ever to have performed that cycle in its entirety (he is indeed credited with having been the first pianist ever to have done so). It is claimed that Hatto recorded both of these works very later in life but that neither of them was at all new to her repertoire when she recorded them.
Now, let's look at a couple of things that might be of some significance. It strikes me that any notable pianist, especially if British (as Hatto was) would have known something about her and what happened to her, especially had they held her in the high regard that has been accorded to her since the recordings began to appear; one would therefore assume that one or more such pianists would accordingly have said or written something about her and her work at some point, unless they had all previously been prepared to remain sworn to secrecy for some reason or none (which would seem less than likely). I knew the late John Ogdon and the late Ronald Smith, with whom she shared quite a lot of repertoire; neither of them ever spoke of Hatto in my hearing or wrote anything about her that I have seen. Those BBC Liszt broadcasts were produced by the British composer Humphrey Searle, who was one of the world's leading authorities on Liszt; I studied with Searle over a period of three years during which we discussed Alkan, Godowsky, Busoni and others - and most especially Liszt, of course - extensively, but he never mentioned her once to me and, perhaps more importantly, this historic event seems not to feature in Humphrey's memoirs Quadrille with a Raven, despite the fact that they contain plenty of other information about his time at BBC. That's not to say that it didn't happen, of course - and one may imagine that it could be checked without undue difficulty. The composer Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji had admittedly retired as a professional music critic by the time Hatto's career really took off, but since Sorabji had praised that Bax work to the skies in the past (describing it - along with concerti by Bowen and the big concerto by Alan Bush - as pinnacles of achievement in British works for piano and orchestra), one might imagine that he would have said something about her at some point; she is not mentioned in any of his known published writings, nor did he ever mention her name to me during the 16½ years that I knew him.
All of this, added to certain parts of the story that have been told about Hatto, might indeed risk arousing some degree of suspicion - and the fact that these recordings of hers, which are supposed to have been made from the 1980s onwards, have only begun to be released relatively recently might possibly enhance the doubts.
If indeed this really is a hoax, it is a very large-scale one indeed - and perhaps one to which Hatto herself may not only not have been party but of which she may not even have known. Furthermore, the risk attached to faking the Chopin/Godowsky recording in particular is especially great, given the small number of other complete sets that have been released.
Whatever the outcome, I suspect that this one is not about to go away this time around. What Sr. Grante and the Altarus people may think, or do, about it I have no idea and it is, of course, early days yet. The presence of teams of lawyers looks set to be an unavoidable prospect if increasing quantities of detailed allegation are published in such places as Gramophone. It will also surely only be a matter of time before the famous/notorious impending-death-of-the-classical-record-industry-monger Norman Lebrecht gleefully jumps on board with his probably inflammatory take on it all; indeed, one can easily envisage him relishing rolling up his literary sleeves and turning this pig's breakfast into a prig's Lebrecht-fest, especially as he may well conclude that the defence usually mounted against his classical recording death-knell reports - that more and more such CDs are nevertheless released month by month - is spurious on the basis that if William Barrington Coupe can make fakes and get away with it on this scale, who else might also be doing it? What next? Will this kind of thing be extended to embrace recent composer discoveries like the Roslavets Chamber Symphony? Who can say? The only certain thing at this point is that, unless this business is permanently suppressed pretty soon (which now seems more unlikely than ever), the interested observer is going to have a lot of entertainment to enjoy! It'll make the Rosemary Brown business look pretty tame by comparison, that's for sure!
Best,
Alistair
Topic: The Hatto Hoax Scandal *OMGWTF?!*