Joyce Hilda Hatto (5 September 1928 – 29 June 2006) was an English

concert pianist A pianist ( , ) is an individual musician who plays the piano. Since most forms of Western music can make use of the piano, pianists have a wide repertoire and a wide variety of styles to choose from, among them traditional classical music, ja ...

and piano teacher. In 1956 she married

William Barrington-Coupe William H. Barrington-Coupe (born William Halford Barrington Coupe, 1931 – 19 October 2014 and known as Barry) was a British record producer and music impresario. Married in 1956 to concert pianist Joyce Hatto, he was jailed for a year in 1966 ...

, a record producer who was convicted of Purchase Tax evasion in 1966. Hatto became famous very late in life when unauthorised copies of commercial recordings made by other pianists were released under her name, earning her high praise from critics. The

fraud In law, fraud is intentional deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right. Fraud can violate civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrator to avoid the fraud or recover monetary compens ...

did not come to light until 2007, more than six months after her death.

Early life and early career

Joyce Hatto was born in

St John's Wood St John's Wood is a district in the City of Westminster, London, lying 2.5 miles (4 km) northwest of Charing Cross. Traditionally the northern part of the ancient parish and Metropolitan Borough of Marylebone, it extends east to west from ...

, London. Her father was an

antique dealer An antique ( la, antiquus; 'old', 'ancient') is an item perceived as having value because of its aesthetic or historical significance, and often defined as at least 100 years old (or some other limit), although the term is often used loosely ...

and piano enthusiast.''The Guardian'' obituary, 10 July 2006
Retrieved 24 December 2012 As a promising young professional, she played at a large number of concerts in London, and throughout Britain and Europe, beginning in the 1950s. There were concertos in which she was accompanied by the

Boyd Neel Louis Boyd Neel O.C. (19 July 190530 September 1981) was an English, and later Canadian conductor and academic. He was Dean of the Royal Conservatory of Music at the University of Toronto. Neel founded and conducted chamber orchestras, and cont ...

, Haydn and London Symphony Orchestras, and many others; solo recitals at the

Wigmore Hall Wigmore Hall is a concert hall located at 36 Wigmore Street, London. Originally called Bechstein Hall, it specialises in performances of chamber music, early music, vocal music and song recitals. It is widely regarded as one of the world's leadin ...

, the

Queen Elizabeth Hall The Queen Elizabeth Hall (QEH) is a music venue on the South Bank in London, England, that hosts classical, jazz, and avant-garde music, talks and dance performances. It was opened in 1967, with a concert conducted by Benjamin Britten. The ...

and elsewhere; and concerts by "pupils of Joyce Hatto" in the late 1960s and early 1970s. She supplemented her earnings with work as a

répétiteur A (from the French verb meaning 'to repeat, to go over, to learn, to rehearse') is an accompanist, tutor or coach of ballet dancers or opera singers. A feminine form, , also appears but is comparatively rare. Opera In opera, a is the person ...

for the

London Philharmonic Choir The London Philharmonic Choir (LPC) is one of the leading independent British choirs in the United Kingdom based in London. The patron is Princess Alexandra, The Hon Lady Ogilvy and Sir Mark Elder is president. The choir, comprising more than ...

under such conductors as

Thomas Beecham Sir Thomas Beecham, 2nd Baronet, Order of the Companions of Honour, CH (29 April 18798 March 1961) was an English conductor and impresario best known for his association with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Philharmonic and the Roya ...

and

Victor de Sabata Victor de Sabata (10 April 1892 – 11 December 1967) was an Italian conductor and composer. He is widely recognized as one of the most distinguished operatic conductors of the twentieth century, especially for his Verdi, Puccini and Wagner. De ...

, and as a piano teacher, both privately and at schools including Crofton Grange, a girls'

boarding school A boarding school is a school where pupils live within premises while being given formal instruction. The word "boarding" is used in the sense of "room and board", i.e. lodging and meals. As they have existed for many centuries, and now exten ...

in Hertfordshire, where her pupils included the novelist

Rose Tremain Dame Rose Tremain (born 2 August 1943) is an English novelist, short story writer, and former Chancellor of the University of East Anglia. Life Rose Tremain was born Rosemary Jane Thomson on 2 August 1943 in London to Viola Mabel Thomson and ...

. She was also active in the recording studios for several companies such as

Saga Records Saga Records was a British independent record label first established in 1958. It pioneered budget-priced light classical music and jazz LPs. Origins The Saga Records label emerged from Saga Films Ltd, a venture established by the British pianis ...

in England, as well as others in Hamburg and Paris.

Critical reception

Hatto's playing drew mixed notices from the critics. A critic for ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

'' wrote of a performance at

Chelsea Town Hall Chelsea Town Hall is a municipal building in King's Road, Chelsea, London, Chelsea, London. The oldest part is a Grade II* listed building and the later part is Grade II listed building, listed. History The building was commissioned to replace ...

in October 1953 that "Joyce Hatto grappled doggedly with too hasty tempi in

Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. Despite his short life, his ra ...

D minor D minor is a minor scale based on D, consisting of the pitches D, E, F, G, A, B, and C. Its key signature has one flat. Its relative major is F major and its parallel major is D major. The D natural minor scale is: Changes needed for t ...

piano concerto A piano concerto is a type of concerto, a solo composition in the classical music genre which is composed for a piano player, which is typically accompanied by an orchestra or other large ensemble. Piano concertos are typically virtuoso showpiec ...

and was impeded from conveying significant feelings towards the work, especially in quick figuration." Trevor Harvey wrote of her Saga recording of

Rachmaninoff Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff; in Russian pre-revolutionary script. (28 March 1943) was a Russian composer, virtuoso pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one o ...

's Piano Concerto No. 2 "one wonders ... whether her technique is really on top of the difficulties of this music ... She shows a musical sense of give and take with the orchestra but it remains a small, rather pallid performance" (''

The Gramophone ''Gramophone'' is a magazine published monthly in London, devoted to classical music, particularly to reviews of recordings. It was founded in 1923 by the Scottish author Compton Mackenzie who continued to edit the magazine until 1961. It was a ...

'', August 1961).

Vernon Handley Vernon George "Tod" Handley (11 November 1930 – 10 September 2008) was a British conductor, known in particular for his support of British composers. He was born of a Welsh father and an Irish mother into a musical family in Enfield, Middles ...

, who conducted the Guildford Philharmonic on Hatto's 1970 recording of Sir Arnold Bax's ''Symphonic Variations'' for her husband's Revolution label, said; " a solo pianist, she was absolutely marvellous. She had ten wonderful fingers and she could get round anything and also she was an extraordinarily charming person to work with, even if she could be very difficult." In another interview, after the 2007 hoax perpetrated by her husband had been revealed, he added; " e had a very doubtful sense of rhythm ... e recording of the Bax was a tremendous labour." Still the record received a favourable review: "Joyce Hatto gives a highly commendable account of the demanding piano part," wrote Robert Layton (''Gramophone'', February 1971). In 1973 Hatto gave the world premiere of two recently published ''Bourrée''s by

Frédéric Chopin Frédéric François Chopin (born Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin; 1 March 181017 October 1849) was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic period, who wrote primarily for solo piano. He has maintained worldwide renown as a leadin ...

in London's Queen Elizabeth Hall. In 1976 she stopped performing in public and moved to

Royston, Hertfordshire Royston is a town and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in the North Hertfordshire, District of North Hertfordshire and county of Hertfordshire in England. It is situated on the Prime meridian (Greenwich), Greenwich Meridian, which brush ...

. It was later claimed that she already had cancer at the time. However, the consultant

radiologist Radiology ( ) is the medical discipline that uses medical imaging to diagnose diseases and guide their treatment, within the bodies of humans and other animals. It began with radiography (which is why its name has a root referring to radiatio ...

who saw her every six weeks for the last eight years of her life stated that she was first treated for

ovarian cancer Ovarian cancer is a cancerous tumor of an ovary. It may originate from the ovary itself or more commonly from communicating nearby structures such as fallopian tubes or the inner lining of the abdomen. The ovary is made up of three different c ...

in 1992, fourteen years before her death, and had had no previous history of the disease.

Fraud

In Hatto's last years more than 100 recordings falsely attributed to her appeared. The repertoire represented on the CDs included the complete

sonata Sonata (; Italian: , pl. ''sonate''; from Latin and Italian: ''sonare'' rchaic Italian; replaced in the modern language by ''suonare'' "to sound"), in music, literally means a piece ''played'' as opposed to a cantata (Latin and Italian ''cant ...

s of

Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classical ...

and

Prokofiev Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev; alternative transliterations of his name include ''Sergey'' or ''Serge'', and ''Prokofief'', ''Prokofieff'', or ''Prokofyev''., group=n (27 April .S. 15 April1891 – 5 March 1953) was a Russian composer ...

, concertos by

Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky , group=n ( ; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer of the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music would make a lasting impression internationally. He wrote some of the most popu ...

Brahms Johannes Brahms (; 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer, pianist, and conductor of the mid-Romantic period. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, he spent much of his professional life in Vienna. He is sometimes grouped with ...

and

Mendelssohn Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (3 February 18094 November 1847), born and widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic music, Romantic period. Mendelssohn's compositi ...

and most of Chopin's compositions, along with rarer works such as the complete Godowsky Studies on Chopin's Études. The recordings were released, along with piano recordings falsely attributed to Sergio Fiorentino, by the Concert Artist Recordings label run by Hatto's husband

, who had a long history in the record industry. The distinguished critic

Neville Cardus Sir John Frederick Neville Cardus, CBE (2 April 188828 February 1975) was an English writer and critic. From an impoverished home background, and mainly self-educated, he became ''The Manchester Guardian''s cricket correspondent in 1919 and it ...

had been dazzled by her playing, according to a story found in one obituary. From 2003 onwards the recordings attributed to Hatto began to receive enthusiastic praise from a small number of participants on various

Usenet Usenet () is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979, and it was ...

groups, mailing lists and

web forums An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are often longer than one line of text, and are at least temporar ...

, sparked by a blind-listening test in December 2002 posted on ThePiano Yahoo! group featuring a recording under Hatto's name of Liszt's ''Mephisto Waltz''. Specialised record review magazines and websites such as ''

Gramophone A phonograph, in its later forms also called a gramophone (as a trademark since 1887, as a generic name in the UK since 1910) or since the 1940s called a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogu ...

'', ''MusicWeb'' and ''Classics Today'', as well as newspapers such as ''

The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...

'', eventually discovered Hatto, reviewed the recordings (with mostly very favourable notices) and published interviews and appreciations of her career; in one case, she was described as "the greatest living pianist that almost no one has ever heard of." Those praising the recordings included Tom Deacon, a former record producer for

Philips Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), commonly shortened to Philips, is a Dutch multinational conglomerate corporation that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, it has been mostly headquartered in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarters i ...

, who produced that label's

Great Pianists of the 20th Century ''Great Pianists of the 20th Century '' was a 200-CD box set released by Philips Records in 1999 and sponsored by Steinway & Sons. The box set comprises 100 volumes featuring 72Guttman 1999, 2005. pianists of the 20th century, each volume with t ...

series and was so fooled he praised and derided the same recording, thinking that one was by Hatto and the other by Matsuzawa; Bryce Morrison, a long-time reviewer for ''Gramophone''; Jed Distler, a reviewer for "Gramophone" and ''Classics Today''; Ateş Orga, a music critic who also wrote some of the liner notes for Concert Artist, as well as an obituary; and

Ivan Davis Ivan Roy Davis, Jr. (February 4, 1932 – March 12, 2018) was an American classical pianist and longstanding member of the faculty at the University of Miami's Frost School of Music. Early life Davis was born in Electra, Texas. He received his ...

, a well-known professional pianist. In May 2005 the

musicologist Musicology (from Greek μουσική ''mousikē'' 'music' and -λογια ''-logia'', 'domain of study') is the scholarly analysis and research-based study of music. Musicology departments traditionally belong to the humanities, although some mu ...

Marc-André Roberge reported on the Yahoo! Godowsky group that, in Hatto's version of the Chopin-Godowsky Studies on the Concert Artist label, a misreading of a chord was identical to one on the

Carlo Grante Carlo Grante (born 1960 in L'Aquila) is an Italian classical pianist. He graduated at the National Academy of St Cecilia in Rome with . Later he also studied with Ivan Davis, Rudolf Firkušný, and Alisa Kezheradze. He is known as a performer of ...

recording (AIR-CD-9092, released 1993). However this coincidence did not prompt Roberge or others to investigate further at that time and verification of the copying from the Grante disc would only occur in 2007. In early 2006 doubts about various aspects of Hatto's recording output were expressed, both in the rec.music.classical.recordings

group and, following the publication of a lengthy appreciation of Hatto in the March issue of ''Gramophone'', by readers of that magazine. In particular, some found it hard to believe that a pianist who had not performed in public for decades and was said to be fighting cancer should produce in her old age a large number of recordings, all apparently of high quality. It also proved difficult to confirm any of the details of the recordings made with orchestra, including even the existence of the conductor credited. The doubters were vigorously countered, most publicly by critic Jeremy Nicholas who in the July 2006 issue of ''Gramophone'', challenged unnamed sceptics to substantiate their accusations by providing evidence that would "stand up in a court of law". Nicholas's challenge was not taken up and in December

Radio New Zealand Radio New Zealand ( mi, Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa), commonly known as Radio NZ or simply RNZ, is a New Zealand public-service radio broadcaster and Crown entity that was established under the Radio New Zealand Act 1995. It operates news and c ...

was able in all innocence, to re-broadcast its hour-long programme of glowing appreciation of the Concert Artist Hatto CDs. This programme included excerpts from a telephone interview with Hatto herself, conducted on 6 April 2006, in which she said nothing to dispel the presenter's assumption that she was the sole pianist on all the CDs. The favourable reviews and publicity generated substantial sales for the Concert Artist CDs: in 2006, one online retailer did £50,000 worth of business with Barrington-Coupe. Barrington-Coupe himself claimed to have sold 3,051 Hatto CDs in 2005 and 2006, and 5,500 from 2007 up to February 2009, and that he had made a "thumping great loss" on them.

Death

Hatto died from

and

deep vein thrombosis Deep vein thrombosis (DVT) is a type of venous thrombosis involving the formation of a blood clot in a deep vein, most commonly in the legs or pelvis. A minority of DVTs occur in the arms. Symptoms can include pain, swelling, redness, and enla ...

at her home in

, on 29 June 2006. She was cremated in

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

on 11 July 2006.

Revelation of fraud

In February 2007 it was announced in a series of articles in ''Gramophone'' and on the magazine's website, after the editor, James Inverne, had commissioned an intensive investigation by the audio expert Andrew Rose and others, that the CDs ascribed to Hatto had been discovered to contain copies, in some cases digitally manipulated (stretched or shrunk in time, re-equalised and rebalanced), of published commercial recordings made by other artists. While some of these artists were well-known, the majority were not. When Brian Ventura, a financial analyst from

Mount Vernon, New York Mount Vernon is a city in Westchester County, New York, Westchester County, New York (state), New York, United States. It is an inner suburb of New York City, immediately to the north of the Borough (New York City), borough of the Bronx. As of t ...

, put the recording of

Liszt Franz Liszt, in modern usage ''Liszt Ferenc'' . Liszt's Hungarian passport spelled his given name as "Ferencz". An orthographic reform of the Hungarian language in 1922 (which was 36 years after Liszt's death) changed the letter "cz" to simpl ...

's ''

Transcendental Études The ''Transcendental Études'' (french: Études d'exécution transcendante, links=no), S.139, are a set of twelve compositions for piano by Franz Liszt. They were published in 1852 as a revision of an 1837 set (which had not borne the title "d' ...

'' credited to Hatto into his computer the

Gracenote Gracenote, Inc. is a company owned by Nielsen Holdings that provides music, video and sports metadata and automatic content recognition (ACR) technologies to entertainment services and companies, worldwide. Formerly CDDB ("Compact Disc Data Base ...

database used by the

iTunes iTunes () is a software program that acts as a media player, media library, mobile device management utility, and the client app for the iTunes Store. Developed by Apple Inc., it is used to purchase, play, download, and organize digital mul ...

software identified the disc, not as a recording by Hatto, but as one by

László Simon László Simon (16 July 1948 – 9 September 2009) was a Hungarian pianist. Professional life László Simon was born in Miskolc. He studied under Zoltán Benkö in Budapest, and under Hans Leygraf in Stockholm and Hannover. He also receiv ...

. On checking online samples of the Simon recording Ventura found it to be remarkably similar to the version credited to Hatto. He then contacted Jed Distler, a critic for ''Classics Today'' and ''Gramophone'', who had praised many of the recordings ascribed to Hatto. Distler has said: An identification of the source of another recording, which had been in preparation for some months, was released the following day by the AHRC Research Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music (CHARM, based at

Royal Holloway, University of London Royal Holloway, University of London (RHUL), formally incorporated as Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, is a public research university and a constituent college of the federal University of London. It has six schools, 21 academic departm ...

) as a by-product of research on performances of Chopin

Mazurkas The mazurka ( Polish: ''mazur'' Polish ball dance, one of the five Polish national dances and ''mazurek'' Polish folk dance') is a Polish musical form based on stylised folk dances in triple meter, usually at a lively tempo, with character ...

. Within a week of the initial story being posted on the ''Gramophone'' website on 15 February, the sources for some 20 of Hatto's

Concert Artist Concert Artist/Fidelio Recordings was a British classical music record label, situated in Royston, Hertfordshire, England, and owned and operated by William Barrington-Coupe. It is best known for selling unauthorized copies of commercial record ...

CDs had been identified. On each of the concerto recordings published in Hatto's final years under her name the conductor's name was given as "

René Köhler René Köhler was a spurious conductor invented by William Barrington-Coupe as part of a fraud scheme in which he passed off numerous Plagiarism, plagiarised copyrighted sound recordings of several classical pianists as the work of his wife, Joyce ...

", and Barrington-Coupe provided a detailed biography for "Köhler". The information given there has not withstood careful scrutiny. The conductors whose work is represented on the concerto recordings credited to Hatto and Köhler are now known to include

Esa-Pekka Salonen Esa-Pekka Salonen (; born 30 June 1958) is a Finnish orchestral conductor and composer. He is principal conductor and artistic advisor of the Philharmonia Orchestra in London, conductor laureate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and music di ...

André Previn André George Previn (; born Andreas Ludwig Priwin; April 6, 1929 – February 28, 2019) was a German-American pianist, composer, and conductor. His career had three major genres: Hollywood films, jazz, and classical music. In each he achieved ...

and

Bernard Haitink Bernard Johan Herman Haitink (; 4 March 1929 – 21 October 2021) was a Dutch conductor and violinist. He was the principal conductor of several international orchestras, beginning with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in 1961. He moved to Lond ...

, while the orchestras, claimed to be the National Philharmonic-Symphony and the

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

Philharmonia, are now known to include the

Vienna Philharmonic The Vienna Philharmonic (VPO; german: Wiener Philharmoniker, links=no) is an orchestra that was founded in 1842 and is considered to be one of the finest in the world. The Vienna Philharmonic is based at the Musikverein in Vienna, Austria. It ...

, the Philharmonia, and the

Royal Philharmonic The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO) is a British symphony orchestra based in London, that performs and produces primarily classic works. The RPO was established by Thomas Beecham in 1946. In its early days, the orchestra secured profitable ...

Admission of fraud

Barrington-Coupe initially denied any wrongdoing but subsequently admitted the fraud in a letter to Robert von Bahr, the head of the

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

record label BIS, which had originally issued some of the recordings plagiarised by Concert Artists. Bahr shared the contents of the letter with ''Gramophone'', which reported the confession on its website on 26 February 2007.James Invern
'I did it for my wife' Joyce Hatto exclusive, William Barrington-Coupe confesses
''Gramophone'' 26 February 2007 Barrington-Coupe claims that Hatto was unaware of the deception, that she would hear the final recordings believing that they were all her own work, that he acted out of love, that he made little money from the enterprise and that he started out by pasting portions of other pianists' recordings into recordings made by Hatto to cover up her gasps of pain. Some critics however have cast doubt on this version of events, not least James Inverne in ''Gramophone''.See for exampl
Classics Today (David Hurwitz)

Denis Dutton Denis Laurence Dutton (9 February 1944 – 28 December 2010) was an American philosopher of art, web entrepreneur, and media activist. He was a professor of philosophy at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. He was also a ...

, 'Shoot the piano player, New York Times, 26 February 2007, and a
DenisDutton.com
/ref> The discovery of plagiarised tracks on a Concert Artist CD released under the name of pianist Sergio Fiorentino raised further questions. Barrington-Coupe refused to help identify the sources of the recordings issued under Hatto's name, claiming that "whatever I do, it won't be enough".

Aftermath

The

British Phonographic Industry British Phonographic Industry (BPI) is the British recorded music industry's Trade association. It runs the BRIT Awards, the Classic BRIT Awards, National Album Day, is home to the Mercury Prize, and co-owns the Official Charts Company with th ...

(BPI) announced an investigation. According to a BPI spokesman in 2007, if the allegations were true, it would have been "one of the most extraordinary cases of piracy the record industry had ever seen". Robert von Bahr of the BIS label said that he "had given a lot of thought" to suing Barrington-Coupe for damages but was inclined not to do so on the assumption that the hoax recordings were "a desperate attempt to build a shrine to a dying wife". He also said that he had advised László Simon to take advantage of the publicity by securing more concert engagements. Barrington-Coupe himself said that he "had given up worrying" about possible legal consequences and added that "I don't consider I've hurt anybody. A lot of attention has been drawn to forgotten artists." The

Hertfordshire Constabulary Hertfordshire Constabulary is the territorial police force responsible for policing the county of Hertfordshire in England. Its headquarters is in Welwyn Garden City. The current chief constable is Charlie Hall. As of March 2019, the force consi ...

said that it would not take any action unless a complaint was made by the copyright holder of one of the original recordings. This did not occur. In 2009

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...

in Britain broadcast a 20-minute documentary about the scam. Barrington-Coupe died at his home in Royston on 19 October 2014.

TV film

A TV film, '' Loving Miss Hatto'', was filmed in Ireland and screened on BBC Television on 23 December 2012. The screenplay was by

Victoria Wood Victoria Wood (19 May 1953 – 20 April 2016) was an English comedian, actress, lyricist, singer, composer, pianist, screenwriter, producer and director. Wood wrote and starred in dozens of sketches, plays, musicals, films and sitcoms over se ...

and the film was made by Left Bank Pictures. Hatto was portrayed by

Maimie McCoy Mary McCoy, professionally known as Maimie McCoy is an English actress. She portrayed Milady de Winter in ''The Musketeers'' (2014–2016), and is the female lead in the ITV reboot series ''Van der Valk'' (2020–). Early life McCoy was born in ...

and

Francesca Annis Francesca Annis (born 14 May 1945) is an English actress. She is known for television roles in '' Reckless'' (1998), ''Wives and Daughters'' (1999), ''Deceit'' (2000), and '' Cranford'' (2007). A six-time BAFTA TV Award nominee, she won the 1979 ...

Rory Kinnear Rory Michael Kinnear (born 17 February 1978) is an English actor and playwright who has worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theatre. In 2014, he won the Olivier Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of William S ...

and

Alfred Molina Alfred Molina (born Alfredo Molina; 24 May 1953) is a British-American actor known for his work on the stage and screen. He first rose to prominence in the West End, earning a nomination for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Newcomer in a Pla ...

played her husband. Barrington-Coupe was still alive at the time, but Wood stated in an interview with ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' that she did not consult him when she was writing the screenplay, although members of the research team for the project had met with him on a number of occasions.

In literature

Hatto's story inspired a novel by the French-Vietnamese author Minh Tran Huy, ''La Double vie d'Anna Song'' ("The double life of Anna Song"). Anna Song, described as "the greatest pianist that no one has heard of", appears to record a huge discography despite illness and old age. Her husband, Paul Desroches, acts as producer for the recordings. It is later revealed in a magazine that the recordings are not the work of Song, but have been stolen by her husband from the work of others. Another novel drawn from the Hatto case is

Lynne Sharon Schwartz Lynne Sharon Schwartz (born March 19, 1939) is an American prose and poetry writer. Biography Schwartz grew up in Brooklyn, the second of three children of Jack M. Sharon, a lawyer and accountant, and Sarah Slatus Sharon; she married Harry Schwa ...

's ''Two-Part Inventions'' (2012). Schwartz has stated that her novel is directly based on the story of Hatto and Barrington-Coupe.

Recordings and their sources

The following is a list of some of the performances attributed to Hatto whose sources have so far been discovered (sorted by Concert Artist catalogue number). More detailed track by track information can be found at the Joyce Hatto Identifications website.

Early discography

The release of

Arnold Bax Sir Arnold Edward Trevor Bax, (8 November 1883 – 3 October 1953) was an English composer, poet, and author. His prolific output includes songs, choral music, chamber pieces, and solo piano works, but he is best known for his orchestral musi ...

's Symphonic Variations in E major (CACD90212 on the

label) is a reissue of Hatto's 1970 recording with the Guildford Philharmonic conducted by

, originally issued on Barrington-Coupe's Revolution label. Hatto's authentic recordings never had a wide distribution and the above-mentioned work of Bax was the last to appear on LP in 1970. In the 1980s, more works were released on

cassette tapes The Compact Cassette or Musicassette (MC), also commonly called the tape cassette, cassette tape, audio cassette, or simply tape or cassette, is an analog magnetic tape recording format for audio recording and playback. Invented by Lou Ottens ...

(Grieg Piano Concerto and a number of Liszt compositions: the two Piano Concerti, ''Rigoletto ''paraphrase, ''Miserere del Trovatore'' paraphrase, ''

Totentanz The ''Danse Macabre'' (; ) (from the French language), also called the Dance of Death, is an artistic genre of allegory of the Late Middle Ages on the universality of death. The ''Danse Macabre'' consists of the dead, or a personification of ...

'' solo piano version, ''Seven Hungarian Historical Portraits''). The solo piano repertoire of these releases shows works Hatto played also at that time in London on various occasions at the

and other venues. Her early releases include: *Concert Artist 7-inch EPs: **Walter Gaze Cooper Piano Concerto #3 **Elspeth Rhys-Williams, 4 Impressions, 2 Songs **Michael Williams Introduction & Allegro for piano & orchestra *Saga: **"Music for the Films" (Addinsell, Bath, Chas. Williams) w/London Variety Theatre Orchestra/Gilbert Vinter **Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue w/Hamburg Pro Musica/George ByrdAlso issued on the Forum label: **Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2 w/Hamburg Pro Musica/George Hurst **Chopin Sonatas No. 1 & 3 **Chopin Minor Piano works (Albumblatt, Fugue, Andante cantabile etc.) *Delta: **Mozart Piano Concertos K. 466 & 488 w/Pasdeloup Orchestra/Isaie Disenhaus **Mozart Piano Concerto K. 453, Rondo K. 382 w/London Classic Players/David Littaur *Fidelio: **Chopin 10 Nocturnes **Gershwin 16 items from the "Song Book" **Lecuona assorted piano pieces *Revolution: **Bax Piano Sonata #1, Piano Sonata #4, Toccata, Water Music **Bax Symphonic Variations in E w/Guildford Philharmonic/Vernon Handley *Boulevard **Rhapsody in Blue & An American in Paris from George Gershwin, with The New York Symphonica, conducted by George Byrd
(Album brought out in 1973, by Allied Records Ltd., 326 Kensal Road, London, W10, as Boulevard, number 4124)

References

External links

Andrys Basten's comprehensive listing of links
to news items, interviews and commentaries; includes download of Mephisto Waltz recording cited in Jan. 2003 on RMCR newsgroup

* ttps://www.boston.com/ae/music/articles/2007/02/27/cherished_music_wasnt_hers/?page=full Geoff Edgers, "Cherished music wasn't hers", ''Boston Globe'', 27 February 2007.
''Gramophone'': "'I did it for my wife' – Joyce Hatto exclusive, William Barrington-Coupe confesses", published 26 February 2007

* [https://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/25/opinion/25iht-edutton.4712389.html ''International Herald Tribune'': "The Joyce Hatto Scandal", Denis Dutton, published 25 February 2007. Republished in New York Times]
''The Telegraph'': " My wife's virtuoso recordings are genuine", published 20 February 2007

David Patrick Stearns, "Ears don't deceive – the CD covers do". ''Philadelphia Inquirer'', 20 February 2007.

"Will the Real Joyce Hatto Please Stand Up", by David Hurwitz, published 18 February 2007

''Gramophone'': "Masterpieces or Fakes? The Joyce Hatto Scandal", published 15 February 2007

* ttp://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/article1398283.ece ''Times Online'': "Piano ‘genius’ is branded a fake", published 17 February 2007
''New York Times'': "A Pianist’s Recordings Draw Praise, but Were They All Hers?," published 17 February 2007

''Boston Globe'' "Joyce Hatto, at 77; pianist was prolific recording artist" published 4 July 2006, retrieved 10 July 2006

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20061120011622/http://www.gramophone.co.uk/newsMainTemplate.asp?storyID=2589&newssectionID=1 Joyce Hatto, English pianist, dies aged 77 - Gramophone 5 July 2006
iTunes fingers musical fraud

Radio New Zealand feature including interview with Hatto, first broadcast 28 May 2006

"'Hatto Recordings Counterfeit?', Radio New Zealand, 19 Feb 2007"

Fantasia For Piano (New Yorker article including interview with William Barrington-Coupe)
17 September 2007

* ttp://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00tt6f6 Who Was Joyce Hatto?(BBC Radio 4 programme) {{DEFAULTSORT:Hatto, Joyce 1928 births 2006 deaths English classical pianists English women pianists Musical hoaxes Deaths from ovarian cancer Musicians from London People from St John's Wood 20th-century classical pianists 20th-century classical musicians 20th-century English musicians 21st-century classical pianists Deaths from cancer in England People from Royston, Hertfordshire English fraudsters 20th-century English women musicians 21st-century English women musicians 20th-century English businesspeople 20th-century women pianists 21st-century women pianists