Re: APRIL!!
REG
"Henk van Tuijl" <hvt...@xs4all.nl> wrote in message
news:460f7058$0$336$e4fe...@news.xs4all.nl...
>
> With all of the uproar that the Joyce Hatto scandal has engendered,
> most critics, newsgroup posters, and other classical music authorities
> overlooked the possibility that authentic Hatto recordings not only exist
> but are bountiful in number. True, the late pianist's husband William
> Barrington-Coupe confessed to fabricating most of the Concert Artist label
> releases credited to Hatto. Yet the real motive turns out not to be love,
> but revenge--or, if you will, "payback time".
>
> When Barrington-Coupe confirmed his presence at 99.9 percent of
> Hatto's recording sessions, he wasn't necessarily referring to Concert
> Artist material, but rather the extensive studio work Hatto took
> throughout the 1950s and '60s to make ends meet. According to William
> Hedley's booklet notes, Westminster's music director Dr. Kurt List
> employed Hatto as the label's "house pianist", owing to her ability to
> sail through the most difficult literature in just one or two takes, with
> few if any inaccuracies. This could result in three or four albums per
> session, which List subsequently marketed under various pianist's names,
> depending on the repertoire (List had a penny-pinching reputation).
>
> Since Hatto was young, able, and in need of work, she didn't mind
> playing "ghost pianist" to non-British counterparts like Edith Farnadi
> (Liszt's Sonata and complete Années de Pčlerinage), Egon Petri
> (Bach/Busoni), Kurt Appelbaum (the complete Beethoven Sonatas), Yuri
> Boukoff (Prokofiev's nine sonatas), Nadia Reisenberg (Chopin Nocturnes and
> Mazurkas), Jorg Demus (Bach's Goldberg Variations, Partitas, and
> Well-Tempered Clavier, plus works of Schumann), and Paul Badura-Skoda (the
> Chopin Etudes, Brahms' F minor Sonata, and various works by Schubert).
> Although List never told Hatto in advance for which pianist she'd be
> deputizing, once in a blue moon she'd find out and adjust her playing
> accordingly.
>
> For example, one is hard pressed to determine which six of the 12
> Scarlatti sonatas credited to Clara Haskil actually were Hatto's work. And
> vice-versa, for that matter. However, it's difficult to know if the
> Beethoven Sonatas' rough-hewn qualities result from similar "hindsight",
> or did Hatto radically change her style by the time she remade most of
> them for the series Concert Artist issued under Sergio Fiorentino's name?
>
> The 20 discs encompassing DG Original Masters' "Authorized Hatto
> Volume 1" include most of the Westminster solo material mentioned above.
> The Boukoff, Reisenberg, and Demus Bach items will appear in Volume 2,
> along with Hatto's complete Westminster concerto "ghostings" and a
> previously unreleased 1980 "audition" tape featuring five John Field
> Nocturnes. DG's remastering engineers effect striking improvement upon the
> original LP and short-lived MCA Double Decker CDs I was able to sample.
> While I honestly can't say that I've enjoyed this collection as much as
> the ersatz Hatto performances I've previously reviewed for
> Classicstoday.com, it's good to see a major label come clean and give
> credit where credit's due.
>
>
> --Jed Distler
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