Dear all

Has anyone caught up with the discussions about Joyce Hatto that have flared up this evening?

Gramophone has posted a very interesting story on its website. They have asked Andrew Rose of Pristine Audio to investigate some alarming parallels between Hatto's and other pianists discs.

Mr Rose has posted a very clever comparison between two 'different versions' of Liszt's Mazeppa on the Pristine Audio website. Well worth a read and then a listen (make sure that you read the story first).

Any thoughts? The 'evidence' looks pretty compelling to me, though I've only just come across the story myself.

Nick

Thanks Bryn. I just discovered your discussion on the BBC site.

The rec.music.classical.recordings discussion with Andrew Rose himself is quite a read!

Nick

I remember a 60s LP on Summit of Chopin played by an unknown, "Stepan Zawisza." I was always impressed by much of the playing there - turns out it was Sergio Fiorentino!

Coincidentally, ConcertArtists are releasing much Fiorentino at the moment, as well as Hatto!

How very sad, in that I find it a little depressing that someone would choose to do this. (I say this as someone who has never bought any of her discs - I did listen to the CD Review segment on her a while back, and have heard one or two other things, but have never been moved to investigate further.)

The posts from Andrew Rose on the thread linked to from the R3 boards are very interesting (as is the stuff on his website). I too will confess to being curious about the Messiaen - though, I noted at the time that I found the comparisons used in the Gramophone review a little puzzling since both Hill and the composer's wife were absent.

It will be doubtless interesting to see what more comes out - of course, two faked recordings do not mean every recording was faked, but it does shift the burden of proof somewhat.

regards, Tam

Some of you might find the following interesting, from one of the eulogisers of Hatto:

http://www.classicstoday.com/review.asp?ReviewNum=175

The problem is that the 'two' Mravinsky recordings are one and the same, just that one of them was wrongly dated, apparently.

Good morning.  Of course, an anagram of Joyce Hatto is "Joy to cheat".  Ho!

There was also this, Daniil Shafran/Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra/Konstantin Ivanov Shostakovich 1st Cello concerto, Symphony 15 reviewed in Gramophone by David Fanning and issued on Regis:

"Not much of Konstantin Ivanov’s work during his long years of service with the USSR State Symphony Orchestra or the Moscow Philharmonic ever found its way to the West. But from the quality of these Shostakovich performances it is hard to say why. Ivanov’s understanding of the ambivalences and the musical flow of the 15th Symphony surpasses all recordings known to me, other than the composer’s son’s, made shortly after the 1971 premiere and, bewilderingly, never released on CD.

Ivanov knows the most important secret of great Shostakovich interpretation: that every musical character is multiple and elusive, and yet necessarily subordinate to an artistically convincing continuity. The pacing of the passacaglia at the heart of the finale – so hard to get right, not least because the score itself is of little help – is absolutely spot-on. Apart from a couple of dodgy patches of intonation in the slow movement, and a couple of places in the succeeding Scherzo where rhythm could be tighter and gestures more pointed, the playing is wholly assured.

And if that is not enough to make this a collectable disc, there is Daniil Shafran’s no less superb account of the First Cello Concerto, which is almost alone in being worthy of a place alongside Rostropovich’s with Ormandy. Shafran’s virtuosity is marginally less exciting, the vibrato marginally less individual, the sense of struggle in the mighty cadenza marginally more palpable; and one could spin all these features as being marginally truer to the music, in that they interpose less performerly ego. The Russian horn obbligato is first-rate – no trace of wobble – and the entire accompaniment is properly intense and in focus.

In both works the remastered 1980 recording is clean and unfussy, though admittedly not quite of demonstration quality in its perspectives. Breaks between tracks are unrealistically short, but that is a small blot on an issue that should be of compelling interest above all, but not only, to Shostakovich collectors."

(From 'Gramofile' where weirdly it remains).

Unfortunately it isn't. They are pirates of deleted BIS and Chandos CDs. The 'Cello concerto is played by Torleif Thedeen and the symphony conducted by Valeri Polyansky.

Both were given dusty reviews by Gramophone (also helpfully available on Gramofile). Sadly, neither dusty review was by David Fanning.

Regis were unwitting victims and recalled all copies and deleted the disc. I know, because I tried to find the CD, fancying a performance that surpasses etc.

Fanning's remark "The pacing of the passacaglia at the heart of the finale – so hard to get right, not least because the score itself is of little help – is absolutely spot-on" is interesting because if I remember - I'm too lazy to check - it was described as "dragging" in the review of the performance when it was conducted by Polyansky.

Oliver

Oh dear.

I find all this modern cynicism saddening.

Whatever happened to old-fashioned faith in one's fellow etc?

(Has something nasty happened to my computer? Or did you do that with the stuff in red? and BIG LETTERS?