Newsweek on Hatto
Andrys Basten
two long articles on the Joyce Hatto story, in the
next issue (3/28), released on the web yesterday.
One is more or less an interview with Barrington-Coupe
in his home and the other is a story on the sleuthing
done.
http://www.andrys.com/hatto.html#news
- Andrys
--
http://www.andrys.com
Steve de Mena
I wonder if there was *one* truthful remark from
WBC in that interview?
Steve
Andrys Basten
Steve de Mena <ste...@stevedemena.com> wrote:
>
>I wonder if there was *one* truthful remark from
>WBC in that interview?
>
>Steve
I think it's a combination of wishful thinking acting
on a form of desperation and also a proclivity to dance
around the truth, to create a better reality.
I do think he has come to fool himself, but there
was also a blatant flouting of other performer rights
while wanting to build his own wife's reputation.
This particular article writer didn't exactly go
with it, at any rate.
- A
Matthew B. Tepper
to be typed in news:f2q7l9$2lv$1...@reader2.panix.com:
> In article <46509690$0$16655$4c36...@roadrunner.com>,
> Steve de Mena <ste...@stevedemena.com> wrote:
>>
>> I wonder if there was *one* truthful remark from WBC in that interview?
>
> I think it's a combination of wishful thinking acting on a form of
> desperation and also a proclivity to dance around the truth, to create a
> better reality.
>
> I do think he has come to fool himself, but there was also a blatant
> flouting of other performer rights while wanting to build his own wife's
> reputation.
>
> This particular article writer didn't exactly go with it, at any rate.
As far as I'm concerned, the picture painted here of WB-C does not show him
in a good light at all.
--
Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!
My personal home page -- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/index.html
My main music page --- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/berlioz.html
To write to me, do for my address what Androcles did for the lion
Harrington/Coy is a gay wrestler who won't come out of the closet
Andrys Basten
Matthew B. Tepper <oy兀earthlink.net> wrote:
[to my]
>> I think it's a combination of wishful thinking acting on a form of
>> desperation and also a proclivity to dance around the truth, to create a
>> better reality.
>>
>> I do think he has come to fool himself, but there was also a blatant
>> flouting of other performer rights while wanting to build his own wife's
>> reputation.
>>
>> This particular article writer didn't exactly go with it, at any rate.
>
>As far as I'm concerned, the picture painted here of WB-C does not show him
>in a good light at all.
For sure not ! I think that was the point, while at least
reporting honestly that he does appear to be emotional too.
But the last assessment she wrote sort of said it all, from her
point of view, which was not sympathetic. Very well written.
Steve de Mena
> In article <Xns993682E54A0...@207.217.125.201>,
> Matthew B. Tepper <oy兀earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> [to my]
>>> I think it's a combination of wishful thinking acting on a form of
>>> desperation and also a proclivity to dance around the truth, to create a
>>> better reality.
>>>
>>> I do think he has come to fool himself, but there was also a blatant
>>> flouting of other performer rights while wanting to build his own wife's
>>> reputation.
>>>
>>> This particular article writer didn't exactly go with it, at any rate.
>> As far as I'm concerned, the picture painted here of WB-C does not show him
>> in a good light at all.
>
> For sure not ! I think that was the point, while at least
> reporting honestly that he does appear to be emotional too.
"Appear" is the key word. He is shrewd and
realized a seemingly offhand comment about having
the TV on "for company" would end up in print.
Steve
Matthew B. Tepper
following letters to be typed in
The one thing that disturbs me is the suggestion that the sodder may indeed
got off scot-free, with respect to the law.
Andrys Basten
>>>> flouting of other performer rights while wanting to build his own wife's
>>>> reputation.
>>>>
>>>> This particular article writer didn't exactly go with it, at any rate.
>>> As far as I'm concerned, the picture painted here of WB-C does not show him
>>> in a good light at all.
>>
>> For sure not ! I think that was the point, while at least
>> reporting honestly that he does appear to be emotional too.
>
>"Appear" is the key word. He is shrewd and
>realized a seemingly offhand comment about having
>the TV on "for company" would end up in print.
>
>Steve
Sure, but somewhat harder to manufacture tears probably.
Reality is that while they pulled this fraud, they were
together for over 50 years and she died and they were
probably pretty close. People aren't inclined to feel
sympathetic, but life's complex.
At any rate, the reporter was not buying the
rationales at least.
Richard Schultz
: Reality is that while they pulled this fraud, they were
: together for over 50 years and she died and they were
: probably pretty close. People aren't inclined to feel
: sympathetic, but life's complex.
Or to put it another way: suppose that Ms. Hatto had been dying of
some degenerative disease and her husband had embezzled a large sum of
money in order to pay for her treatment, or even stolen it from some
wealthy citizen. How would we (or should we) feel in such a case?
-----
Richard Schultz sch...@mail.biu.ac.il
Department of Chemistry, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel
Opinions expressed are mine alone, and not those of Bar-Ilan University
-----
"Logic is a wreath of pretty flowers which smell bad."
ckho...@ckhowell.com
> At any rate, the reporter was not buying the
> rationales at least.
For an article in a "popular" magazine, she did well to mention that
there may also be a Fiorentino problem
Christopher Howell
td
This is one of the real tragedies about this story.
Fiorentino was a REAL pianist.
Now, as it stands, one has to question any of the Fiorentino CDs which
have appeared on the Concert Artist label, as well as Ernst Lumpe's
extensive discography of Fiorentino. I would imagine that Ernst is
tearing his hair out trying to figure out what part of that
discography is real and what part is fake, in the WBC tradition.
I am heartened by the general feeling that the entire hoax could
simply not have been pulled off without the active and willing
participation of Joyce Hatto herself. This seems to me self-evident,
but some have questioned her involvement. I simly have never
contemplated the possibility of her not having been involved. Her
mythomania was a strong as her husband's.
TD
Norman M. Schwartz
"Richard Schultz" <sch...@mail.biu.ack.il> wrote in message
news:f2rkgn$au2$2...@news.iucc.ac.il...
> In article <f2r7c6$75c$1...@reader2.panix.com>, Andrys Basten
> <and...@panix.com> wrote:
>
> : Reality is that while they pulled this fraud, they were
> : together for over 50 years and she died and they were
> : probably pretty close. People aren't inclined to feel
> : sympathetic, but life's complex.
>
> Or to put it another way: suppose that Ms. Hatto had been dying of
> some degenerative disease and her husband had embezzled a large sum of
> money in order to pay for her treatment, or even stolen it from some
> wealthy citizen. How would we (or should we) feel in such a case?
>
All beside the point.
B-C seems to have been born a crook and will die a crook, (with or without
any Ms. Hatto).
> -----
> Richard Schultz sch...@mail.biu.ac.il
Matthew B. Tepper
following letters to be typed in news:f2rkgn$au2$2...@news.iucc.ac.il:
> In article <f2r7c6$75c$1...@reader2.panix.com>, Andrys Basten
> <and...@panix.com> wrote:
>
>: Reality is that while they pulled this fraud, they were together for over
>: 50 years and she died and they were probably pretty close. People aren't
>: inclined to feel sympathetic, but life's complex.
>
> Or to put it another way: suppose that Ms. Hatto had been dying of some
> degenerative disease and her husband had embezzled a large sum of money in
> order to pay for her treatment, or even stolen it from some wealthy
> citizen. How would we (or should we) feel in such a case?
No different.
John Briggs
Which I haven't seen discussed here.
--
John Briggs
graham
"John Briggs" <john.b...@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:YCk4i.17$J1...@newsfe3-gui.ntli.net...
Well, I for one won't risk my money on the CA oevre. There are several of
his recordings available on minor labels through Crotchet and MDT.
Graham
aleksios
> For those who haven't seen these yet, Newsweek has two long
> articles on the Joyce Hatto story [...]
Andrys, thanks for taking the trouble to keep track of these stories.
Your page is an indispensable resource for anyone interested in
Hattosaga.
Now, as to Esther Bintliff's piece, it contains such gems as, "But as
in all cover-ups, the question is: what did Hatto know and when did
she know it?". Which means that either Hatto rivalled the Wandering
Jew in terms of longevity, or that, these days, not even Newsweek can
afford a good copy editor. But that's mere quibbling. We have bigger
fish to fry.
Let's start with Brian Braiker's tech piece, and let's note just how
uninformative it actually is. Of course, it sings the praises of
iTunes and Gracenote, no surprise there; but it also essentially
papers over what actually happened.
"The chance you have 13 tracks that have exactly the same starting
position is something like 10 to the negative 13th power", Gracenote's
Ty Roberts is quoted as saying. Which is nice, but irrelevant --
tracks on the notorious CA Hatto CD did *not* have the same starting
positions as tracks on the BIS Simon CD! The official Gracenote story
is (probably not unintentionally) somewhat confused, but it amounts to
this: the Hatto CD, although slightly different from the Simon CD, was
recognised because, (a) the latter was in Gracenote's database, and
(b) within limits, the matching algorithm is 'fuzzy'.
However, (a) some -- myself included -- were unable to find the Simon
CD in the Gracenote database before the scandal reached the major news
outlets; the only item was the Hatto CD, bearing both Hatto's and
Simon's names, which means that someone (intentionally or not)
submitted it as such to the database before TSHTF. Moreover, (b) it is
not at all clear whether the difference between the original (BIS
Simon CD) and the copy (CA Hatto CD) falls within the fuzziness of
Gracenote's matching algorithm. My (rough) calculations suggest that
it's somewhere around the limit, but, at this point, the issue can
only be definitively settled if Gracenote makes their algorithm public
-- which they're hardly going to do.
And what about WBC and his technological wizardry? If one reads
carefully (even this piece, let alone the stuff published on the web
by Andrew Rose and others), it turns out that it wasn't such
remarkable wizardry after all. The manipulations were minimal -- a
little tone adjustment here, some time-stretching there, some channel-
swapping elsewhere; IOW, nothing requiring either exceptional skill,
or a serious investment in professional software or hardware -- in
fact, well within the abilities of any amateur with a decent PC.
Let's go back to the main piece now. Shorn of its human interest
frills, it's a modern fable: the technologically expert crook, WBC, is
brought down by the same digital technology which enabled him to pull
the wool over the eyes of the critics. The villain is unmasked, good
triumphs over evils, and poetic justice rules. Or does it?
The story rests on a fundamental assumption: WBC was a supreme
technical wizard who could, by the twisting of a few knobs, improve
piano performances beyond all recognition. (Not coincidentally, the
same idea has been promoted repeatedly in this ng by Tom Deacon.) This
assumption -- which a careful reading of the techie stuff reveals to
be unfounded -- must never be questioned. Why? Because if WBC's skill
lay not in technical manipulation, but in the subtler art of
understanding the music critics (and thus, among other things, knowing
which recordings to steal), then all those critics -- those assiduous
buyers of bridges in Brooklyn and ocean-front real estate in Montana,
the Richard "Gullible" Dyers, the Bryce "Credulous" Morrisons, the Tom
"Besotted" Deacons -- are revealed to the world as naked as the
proverbial emperor. And a decent respect to the opinions of mankind
requires that we should spare her such terrible sight...
--Alex (the balanced philistine)
mal...@concentric.net
> On 2007-05-20 14:08:37 -0400, and...@panix.com (Andrys Basten) said:
>
> However, (a) some -- myself included -- were unable to find the Simon
> CD in the Gracenote database before the scandal reached the major news
> outlets; the only item was theHattoCD, bearing bothHatto'sand
> Simon's names, which means that someone (intentionally or not)
> submitted it as such to the database before TSHTF.
There's a much simpler explanation than the one put forward that
someone had discovered the fraud and entered it into the gracenote
database without saying anything to anyone. The original release of
the Hatto Transcendental Etudes CD had no time stretching and used all
twelve tracks from the Lazlo Simon CD. The sound was altered
considerably but the tracks are essentially the same length (a bit
more blank space here and there). It is very plausible that this
original Liszt CD would match the Simon CD in gracenotes whereas the
later issues of the Hatto CD (with time stretching and Nojima's feux-
follets) would not be matched to Simon by gracenotes.
Farhan
aleksios
> [...] The original release of the Hatto Transcendental Etudes CD
> had no time stretching and used all twelve tracks from the Lazlo
> Simon CD.
Has anyone seen this "original release"? If not, Occam points the way.
> It is very plausible that this original Liszt CD would match the
> Simon CD in gracenotes [...]
Plausible or not, it does not explain why, before Gracenote became
aware of the scandal, (a) the Simon CD could not be found in their DB,
or, (b) why the Hatto CD entry bore the names of both Hatto and Laszlo
Simon.
This issue has been aired before -- see in the archive, among others,
the thread "Hatto - track durations for Liszt Studies anyone?"
--Alex (the scholastic philistine)
mal...@concentric.net
> On 2007-05-21 17:48:41 -0400, mal...@concentric.net said:
>
> > had no time stretching and used all twelve tracks from the Lazlo
> > Simon CD.
>
> Has anyone seen this "original release"? If not, Occam points the way.
I've examined two different copies of the original release myself.
Anyone who bought the CD prior to 2004 probably has an original
release.
> > It is very plausible that this original Liszt CD would match the
> > Simon CD in gracenotes [...]
>
> Plausible or not, it does not explain why, before Gracenote became
> aware of the scandal, (a) the Simon CD could not be found in their DB,
> or, (b) why theHattoCD entry bore the names of bothHattoand Laszlo
> Simon.
Please explain to me how you know (a) to be true. Someone went and
searched for the Lazlo Simon CD in gracenote before the scandal broke?
> This issue has been aired before -- see in the archive, among others,
> the thread "Hatto- track durations for Liszt Studies anyone?"
All those Hatto track durations were based on the revised Hatto CD,
which departs from the Lazlo Simon CD in timings considerably more
than the original Hatto release.. Furthermore, the Liszt Etudes were
not the only CD identified by gracenote. The Rachmaninoff Concertos,
Messaien, and Debussy Preludes also all came up as other artists later
verified to be the source of the respective Hatto CD so I don't buy
that there was someone out there identifying Hatto CDs and secretly
entering them into gracenote just waiting for the scandal to break.
Maybe in the Hollywood movie version of the story...
Farhan
>
> --Alex (the scholastic philistine)
aleksios
> I've examined two different copies of the original release
> myself. Anyone who bought the CD prior to 2004 probably has an
> original release.
And is that what Ventura had?
> Please explain to me how you know (a) to be true. [...]
Because others (e.g., Kirk McElhearn) and myself looked for it. Please
check the thread I indicated earlier, the details are there.
> [...] the Liszt Etudes were not the only CD identified by
> gracenote.
No, but that's what started the ball rolling.
> I don't buy that there was someone out there identifying Hatto
> CDs and secretly entering them into gracenote [...]
I don't either. But note that, in a sense, data submitted to Gracenote
is always entered 'secretly', because Gracenote has no means of
identifying who submits it; at best, it can record the IP. I find the
entire iTunes/Gracenote story very dubious, for the reasons detailed
in the above-referenced thread.
--Alex (the uniq philistine)
Andrys Basten
>Plausible or not, it does not explain why, before Gracenote became
>aware of the scandal, (a) the Simon CD could not be found in their DB,
>or, (b) why the Hatto CD entry bore the names of both Hatto and Laszlo
>Simon.
I went back to the very interesting thread on the above.
It was Kirk and you who looked up the Simon CD in a few different ways,
but found no results for Simon/BIS in the two days after the story broke.
When using http://www.gracenote.com/music/index_old.html
you both kept records that the results said:
Laszlo Simon / Franz Liszt -12 Etudes d'execution transcendante
Label: Concert Artists
Year: 2007
Artist Info : Joyce Hatto
Now, that is definitely strange.
And, as you both pointed out then, nothing for Simon without Hatto
and nothing for Simon on BIS rather than on Concert Artists, at the time.
The record now reads differently if you search as of early March '07.
mal...@concentric.net
> On 2007-05-21 19:53:47 -0400, mal...@concentric.net said:
>
> > I've examined two different copies of the original release
> > myself. Anyone who bought the CD prior to 2004 probably has an
> > original release.
>
> And is that what Ventura had?
You'd have to ask Brian Ventura. At the time nobody knew there were
different versions of this CD. These Concert Artist Hatto CDs are not
a fixed product. Barrington-Coupe was often fiddling with them and
making slight changes to them. So far three different versions of the
Transcendental Etudes have turned up. The original has all 12 Etudes
by Lazlo Simon. The next version replaces feux-follets with the
Nojima recording but without any time stretching. The next version
speeds up the Nojima performance by a couple of seconds. The disc
that was used for testing by Rose and Gramophone was Jed Distler's
copy, which was the last of these versions.
> > Please explain to me how you know (a) to be true. [...]
>
> Because others (e.g., Kirk McElhearn) and myself looked for it. Please
> check the thread I indicated earlier, the details are there.
I checked the thread and I don't see that you've proved (a) at all.
You checked after the scandal had already broke. You've already said
that users can edit the gracenote data so by the time you checked
anybody could have gone into gracenote and made a Hatto/Simon entry as
you described.
When you look at the specific Hatto CDs that gracenote identified they
are the ones where Concert Artist copied another CD entirely and left
the ordering of works and tracks exactly the same. For example, The
Hatto and Tateno Debussy Preludes CD are both 24 tracks containing all
the Preludes in their proper order. I don't find it hard to fathom
that such discs could have been identified by gracenote's algorithm.
If gracenote hadn't identified this Debussy CD we'd probably still be
looking for the Hatto source for it. Also, note that Barrington-Coupe
could have easily fooled gracenote by reordering the tracks (i.e. had
he put the Rachmaninoff Concerto #3 first on the CD and the
Rachmaninoff 2nd next then gracenote would never have matched it to
the Bronfman Rach 2 and 3 CD).
Farhan
mal...@concentric.net
>
> > I've examined two different copies of the original release
> > myself. Anyone who bought the CD prior to 2004 probably has an
> > original release.
>
> And is that what Ventura had?
You'd have to ask Brian Ventura. At the time nobody knew there were
different versions of this CD. These Concert Artist Hatto CDs are not
a fixed product. Barrington-Coupe was often fiddling with them and
making slight changes to them. So far three different versions of the
Transcendental Etudes have turned up. The original has all 12 Etudes
by Lazlo Simon. The next version replaces feux-follets with the
Nojima recording but without any time stretching. The next version
speeds up the Nojima performance by a couple of seconds. The disc
that was used for testing by Rose and Gramophone was Jed Distler's
copy, which was the last of these versions.
> > Please explain to me how you know (a) to be true. [...]
>
> Because others (e.g., Kirk McElhearn) and myself looked for it. Please
> check the thread I indicated earlier, the details are there.
I checked the thread and I don't see that you've proved (a) at all.
aleksios
> [...] You'd have to ask Brian Ventura.
Let me sum this up, in the inimitable manner of that noted
American philosopher, Donald Rumsfeld, keeping track of known
knowns (KKs) and known unknowns (KUs).
(1) KK: CDDB is currently Gracenote's (hereafter GN) proprietary
database; GN does not disclose tech details regarding cddb.
(2) Some inferences can be made from, (a) the original cddb, (b)
freedb and gnudb, (c) "reverse" engineering.
(3) KK: CDDB's matching algorithm is, intentionally, "fuzzy".
KU: The degree of fuzziness.
(4) KK: Anyone using a licensed client (e.g., iTunes) can submit
properly formatted data to cddb. If the CD is not already in
cddb, the data is almost always accepted, subject to some
filtering or processing. Such submissions are, in practical
terms, anonymous.
KU: Is properly formatted data ever rejected?
(5) KK: GN claims it employs a number of editors.
KU: The amount of editing and correcting these editors do.
It is reasonable to assume that, (a) GN has some means of
keeping track of edits, and, (b) that editors are bound by
NDAs.
(6) KK: What happens when cddb receives a submission for a CD
already in the database. It is reasonable to assume that GN
uses some form of versioning system.
(7) KK: CDDB consists largely of volunteer user contributions.
KU: How much of it is user-contributed?
(8) KK: CDDB contains errors, particularly in classical music.
(9) KK: DiscID, the most important element of the matching
algorithm, is not unique. Collisions (mismatches) do occur.
KU: The exact probability of collisions.
(10) KK: At point t1, Brian Ventura noticed a Hatto CD being
identified by CDDB as being Laszlo Simon's. This started the
ball rolling.
KU: (a) Which version of the forged CD BV used. (b) What did
the CDDB entry it was matched to represent (Simon? A version
of Hatto?). (c) Whether this entry listed both Simon and
Hatto, or just Simon?
(11) KK: At point t2, Kirk and myself were able to locate only
one relevant entry in CDDB; this single entry listed both
Simon and Hatto. It is reasonable to assume this is the
entry BV's CD matched.
KU: When the entry was made to list both Simon and Hatto
(before t1, or between t1 and t2?).
(12) KK: Despite several requests I made in this ng, no-one has
posted the raw layout data for either the Simon or any
version of the Hatto CD.
It should be obvious from this list just how murky this whole iTunes/
CDDB business is.
> [...] When you look at the specific Hatto CDs that gracenote
> identified they are the ones where Concert Artist copied another
> CD entirely and left the ordering of works and tracks exactly
> the same. [...]
I'm only interested in the first one, for obvious reasons. Subsequent
matches are interesting for those who are trying to identify the
sources for the forgeries, but that's not my interest; moreover, they
don't tell us anything about what exactly it was that CDDB contained
and matched at t1.
--Alex (the schematic philistine)