Masterpieces Or Fakes? The Thomas Ades Scandal          February 15 2007

It was already one of the strangest stories the classical music world had witnessed. But the discovery of the English composer Thomas Ades ?as the most rubbish composer we’ve all got to endure, appears to have taken a bizarre, even potentially sinister turn.

It was around ten years ago that critics began to champion this hyped-up wunderkind, whose pieces were notoriously easy to get hold of. Such was the mediocrity of his work that it was worth making the effort to jump on the bandwagon that surrounded him – there was serious @&%*ing dosh to be made and everyone at Faber music could pretend that everything with contemporary music was well. By the ?time of yet another bloody festival at the Barbican in 2007, Thomas Ades was not only a widespread success, but a cause celebre. To love Ades was to be in the know, a true aficionado who didn’t need to use their ears and common sense to recognise a good, a great, thing when they heard it.

But at the same time as the cult of Ades was burgeoning, there were persistent rumours as to the true origins of his music. How, wondered the doubters, could one man – especially one who had battled being shite for many years – have mastered a range of styles and genres, and persuaded EMI to record so much of his woeful note spinning.

However, Guardian critic Tom Service published a letter asking anyone who had any evidence of any wrong-doing to come forth. Nobody did, and the matter rested. Until now.

Several days ago, another critic decided to listen to Ades’s Asyla. He put the disc into his computer to listen, and something awfully strange happened. His ears identified the piece as, yes, Ades, but he heard nothing original or meaningful whatsoever. Instead, he heard a load of freeloading borrowings from Ives, Berio, Tippett and Boulez all cynically thrown together to make sure the composer gained favour where it mattered.

In then went a recording of Ades’s Piano Quintet and, sure enough, his ears identified it as another blatant rip off – this time of Ligeti and Elliott Carter. Again, the critic compared, and again he could hear no difference.

The scores of Asyla and the Piano Quintet were then sent to an expert who scientifically checked Ades’s techniques and patterns with these masters. They matched. “Without a shadow of a doubt,” he reported, “Ades’s ‘compositions’ are pinched.”

More astonishing revelations were to come. He then checked his opera The Tempest, and found that it sounded strange, as if been had been tampered with by other composers. After running checks, he found that the music had indeed been manipulated and that the piece was essentially a huge vanity project by all concerned. It became clear that the opera ruined the play by William Shakespeare, which Ades picked up in a second-hand shop for 30p on the Charing Cross Road.
 
It would take many weeks of intensive work to examine all of Ades’s pieces, but it seems clear that at least some of these works are too close for comfort to other great works to be taken seriously by anyone with half a brain. Contacted for his comments, Tom Service – who ?acknowledged that he produced well-nigh all of the Guardian’s recent gushing spin - was at a loss to explain the similarity.

Are Ades pieces fakes? If so, how many? This, it must be suspected, is a story that won’t go away until the full truth is known.

 

Brilliant!! And very, very naughty   Now I wonder who Hoyce Jatto might be   I've got four suspects in the frame with one of them leading the field. Hmmm, but I might be way out. Thanks for a good laugh whomsoever you may be.

I only know that Kreisler passed his compositions for ancient ones, but everyone knows that. The fact that we can talk about things like this here proves my saying: everything is for the best in this world.
I think every composer must find his own path. When they started to teach how to write fugues it became dead. Many composers are self taught (like Wagner), but still have a good education. Beethoven studied with Salieri and Haydn (also he did not appreciate him).

The relentlessly highbrow Culture Show on BBC2 on Saturday finds room for an interview with Mr Ades, squeezed in between items about Bryan Ferry, Maximo Park and Father Ted. Sadly, Lauren Laverne isn't conducting the interview ( that is being done by Ms Sharp )

Ades is a good composer.
i have a friend who has slept with him, so i feel able to comment.

 

GG, that thing you have below your name is gross. It gives Raych the creeps. Can't you change it for something pleasant? I know my picture is hardly exciting - it's the Bakewell Pudding Shop, in case anyone wondered - but at least it doesn't provoke nightmares.

S-S!

What alse would one expect the Bakewell puddin' to plump for? Pies?

I love this animal. It has a good soul and good eyes. I think I can communicate with this one.