Quotes of the Day

When Joyce Hatto died last June at the age of 77, the classical music world mourned the loss, it thought, of one of its most talented, and reclusive, pianists. Obituaries reported that the musician retreated from concert recitals after being diagnosed with cancer in the early 1970s but, over the next 30 years, Hatto recorded more than 100 CDs of virtuoso performances in a private studio near her home in Royston, England. The recordings, published by her husband William Barrington-Coupe's small Concert Artist label, wowed critics, one of whom called Hatto in 2005 the "greatest living pianist that almost no one has ever heard of."

Maybe not so great. On Feb. 15, British magazine Gramophone asserted that at least some of Hatto's recordings were copies of other performers' work. A critic came upon the alleged fraud when he loaded a Hatto CD onto his computer and an online database automatically identified it as a set by Hungarian Laszlo Simon. An independent expert testing Hatto's catalog claims that the sound-wave patterns on at least five of her CDs are identical to earlier recordings. One online retailer has stopped selling Hatto's music, and the British Phonographic Industry has begun an investigation. If the allegations are true, says a BPI spokesman, "this would be one of the most extraordinary cases of piracy the record industry had ever seen."

How could no one have noticed until now, especially as some of Hatto's work is said to be identical to that of renowned pianists such as Vladimir Ashkenazy? Gramophone editor James Inverne says that there can be hundreds of world-class recordings of a given piece, and no critic can be familiar with identifying nuances of all its interpretations. And perhaps, more importantly, classical connoisseurs simply didn't expect plagiarism to infect their art form. "The art and literary worlds are often hit by accusations of copying," Inverne says. "We've never experienced a scandal like this before."

Barrington-Coupe has flatly denied plagiarism accusations, telling the Daily Telegraph newspaper that his wife "was the the sole pianist on those recordings." Inverne says the disputed recordings are "great piano playing," but, he adds, they are "just not Hatto."

• THEUNIS BATES
• A British classical pianist is exposed as a fake