MusicWeb Reviewer’s Log: March 2007
Reviewer: Patrick C Waller
Like most music-lovers,
the name of Joyce Hatto has never been
very far from my thoughts recently despite
never having heard one of "her"
discs. I was aware of her reputation
and the Ravel set - now thought to be
played by Roger Muraro - had made its
way onto my electronic wish-list some
time before the story broke in the middle
of February. A lot has since been written
on MusicWeb
and elsewhere
addressing many aspects of the case,
most remarkably Christopher Howell’s
article
reproducing correspondence from Joyce
and her husband William Barrington-Coupe.
The Daily
Telegraph newspaper published
Barrington-Coupe’s initial denial, and
the Gramophone
and The
Times have written about his subsequent
"confession".
As far as I am aware,
in terms of scale, this is the first
case of its kind. No doubt there have
been plenty of more minor infringements
of copyright and specific cases of piracy.
In this instance there seems to have
been a programme of highly effective
deception which had gone undetected
for some considerable time. I would
suggest that the music world needs to
look outwardly as well as inwardly in
learning lessons for the future. I have
been involved in medical research for
well over twenty years and it may surprise
some music-lovers to learn that fraud
is a significant problem in that arena.
And there are some interesting parallels
to be drawn.
The kind of fraud at
issue here – plagiarism – certainly
exists in medical research but in most
cases it does not directly lead to harm
to patients. Complete fabrication of
data is much more concerning – for example
inventing data to show that a treatment
works when in all probability it doesn’t
– and perhaps the worst crime. It now
seems that the late-flowering recording
career of Joyce Hatto was effectively
fabricated.
The first parallel
I would like to draw between the two
scenarios is the issue of detection
of fraud because in both cases it would
seem to be more difficult than might
be expected. It is always easy in hindsight
but the fact remains that many reviewers,
the collective quality of whom cannot
seriously be doubted, did not spot the
Hatto deception by listening to the
discs. In medical research there is
a system called "peer review"
which takes place before publication
– it is well-recognised that this usually
fails to detect fraud perpetrated by
someone who is reasonably clever. In
the Hatto case there were rumours of
a scam flying around for a year or two
deriving from internet chat rooms. From
the ones I have seen, the main basis
seemed to be that it would be impossible
for someone with cancer to play like
this over such a long period of time.
Sitting here now, this might seem quite
a reasonable basis to raise a flag but
"cancer" is a diverse disease
and there are genuine stories of people
who have battled against it and achieved
something remarkable. In the same way,
the fact that a medical researcher seems
to find patients for studies more easily
and complete his research more quickly
than others is, by itself, not a good
basis to accuse someone of cheating;
unless the numbers involved are a long
way out of line they could simply be
more industrious than most.
So it is my view that
reviewers – collectively or individually
– shouldn’t be beating themselves up
about not spotting the problem earlier.
Perhaps we can expect some copycats
and if (this is a big "if")
the music world wants to facilitate
early detection of occasional major
programmes of deception, it will have
to set up a system designed to do so.
On the other hand, though, no one should
kid themselves that reviewing is fundamentally
an objective process or that they are
uninfluenced by what is going on around
them. Indeed there is a whole set of
statistical theory - known as Bayesian
statistics - which is based on adjusting
prior expectations in the light of new
evidence, the precepts of which are
probably relevant to just about anything.
The medical research world tries to
get round the problem of preconceptions
by "blinding" observers –
even for relatively objective measurements
such as blood pressure. Somehow I doubt
we will see this widely applied in music
criticism – for one thing it would require
a lot of effort to set up.
A further parallel
comes from consideration of what to
do when fraud is suspected and the flag
is raised. Here the medical world has
systems in place that are used to conduct
a thorough quasi-judicial investigation
and there are associated powers – e.g.
to strike a doctor off the register.
So, providing a case gets into the system
- in the past some have been swept under
the carpet - there is a clear mechanism
to deal with it. In the Hatto case,
it is possible that civil and/or criminal
proceedings might ultimately be brought
and, as been pointed out on the bulletin
board by Alistair Hinton, the MCPS-PRS
might be taking an interest. But what
has happened so far is that interested
parties, mainly the specialist media
and music-lovers have themselves conducted
an investigation largely using the internet
as a tool for gathering and disseminating
information. If we go back only a decade
or so ago this would not have been possible
and I feel we need to reflect on the
advantages and disadvantages that it
has brought. Most obviously, the internet
has brought speed – things have moved
very quickly indeed and, generally,
this is positive. Credibility is a very
big issue though and it would be easy
for someone to have some "fun"
and pour oil on our wounds. Of course,
everyone knows you can’t believe everything
you read in a newspaper or chat-room
but what can you believe and how can
you be sure who is saying it? Only once
discs have been compared by identifiable,
credible people using the technologies
available can we really be sure what
is going on. This is a time-consuming
process and it seems unlikely that it
will be undertaken systematically for
all the relevant discs – after all,
who is going to pay?
Finally in respect
of Joyce Hatto, there seems to be little
doubt that the main reason why reviews
of "her" discs were generally
very positive was that clever choices
were made. But it is also hard not to
wonder to what extent they might have
been liked as a result of what was done
to them electronically. I confess that
I hadn’t been aware before that you
could speed up or slow down a recording
without changing pitch and presume this
is a digital age phenomenon. How much
of this kind of thing goes on in everyday
recording and what is legitimate? I
certainly wouldn’t be impressed to find
out that what I am listening to was
actually played at a slower speed than
I am then hearing it at, even though
the result might be greater accuracy.
What is more, I am pretty sure I wouldn’t
be able to tell. There have even been
suggestions on the bulletin
board of a system for vetting discs
before they are released. What might
be more practical would be for the industry
to try to reach agreement on what is
and is not acceptable practice - outside
obvious legal considerations – i.e.
a voluntary code. Record companies would
hopefully sign up to it and breaches
of the code would primarily be embarrassing
and therefore potentially commercially
damaging. Again, there are parallels
to be found in other walks of life.
An example of the kind of thing such
a code would need to address would be
the incident cited by Mr. Barrington-Coupe
as his initial inspiration for stepping
out of line – the famous high notes
in Furtwängler’s 1952 recording
of Tristan and Isolde which Kirsten
Flagstad couldn’t hit and which Elisabeth
Schwarzkopf provided. Should that be
considered acceptable? Certainly, in
my view, it should at least be openly
acknowledged. I have the recent GROC
incarnation of this recording issued
almost fifty years later. This is now
mentioned in the booklet essay but my
understanding is that it was not originally
acknowledged. In drawing up any such
code the main purpose would probably
be to make sure the listener knows what
they are actually hearing. That’s what
it’s all about – "doing what it
says on the tin" – Hattogate being
a rather extreme case of well … the
opposite.
The most striking new
disc I have heard this month by some
margin is of the Neruda
songs by Peter Lieberson sung
by his late wife Lorraine Hunt Lieberson
which was a February Recording of
the Month. I can only echo Anne
Ozorio’s great enthusiasm for both the
music and performance – given live in
Boston about six months before Hunt
Lieberson’s premature death. Anne wrote
that anyone complaining about the brevity
of the disc - there are no couplings
- "needs a soul transplant".
I am tempted to suggest that anyone
who doesn’t feel moved by the disc should
also go on the waiting list.
The music of the Greek
composer Nikos Skalkottas
who died in 1949 has recently done quite
well in the recording studio after years
of neglect. I am just starting to catch
up with some of it and have been really
enjoying the Greek
Dances. There are 36 of these, performed
with panache by the BBC Symphony Orchestra
under Nikos Christodoulou. The recorded
sound is stunning and presentation by
BIS very handsome, and, as Rob Barnett
said in his review, this seems an ideal
place to start exploring the composer’s
work.
Another composer who
seems to be doing quite well is Alan
Hovhaness although there is
still an awful lot of his music to be
recorded. I recently came across a First
Edition CD of his Concerto No 7 for
Orchestra, Symphony No 15 Silver
Pilgrimage and Magnificat
which was reviewed
on MusicWeb a couple of years ago. These
are performances by the Louisville Orchestra
under Robert S. Whitney which were made
between 1953 and 1963. The earliest
of them was the dynamic and attractive
concerto and, apart from a bit of tape
hiss, few allowances need to be made
for the recording sound.
The Finnish composer
Rautavaara is perhaps
best known for his Concerto for Birds
and Orchestra Cantus Arcticus,
a most attractive work dating from 1972.
A more recent Clarinet Concerto (2001)
is coupled with this on an Ondine disc
(ODE 1041-2) which I have been enjoying
a great deal. Richard Stoltzman is the
soloist and Leif Segerstam conducts
the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra.
A couple of discs I
have both reviewed and enjoyed recently
could hardly be more different. Jean
Francaix’s suite for Oboe and
Orchestra L’Horloge
de Flore is a longstanding
favourite of mine and is beautifully
performed here by Lajos Lencsés.
The couplings too are delightful, particularly
the trio for oboe, bassoon and piano.
In contrast, The
Reluctant Masquerade, an opera
by James Stevens, a British
composer best known for his film music,
is a gory tale but it is most imaginatively
set and contain some surprises if you
care to download it from the Pristine
Classical website for a mere 6 Euros.
Last month I wrote
some initial thoughts about the Naxos
Music Library. Fellow reviewer Tony
Haywood has much more experience of
it and posted some thoughts on the Bulletin
Board. The Library seems to be growing
at a very rapid pace with many new discs
being added every working day and new
labels joining all the time. I quoted
a figure of 11,500 discs but this has
already been revised to 15,000. One
real discovery I have made here is the
piano music of Norwegian composer Harald
Sæverud – there are six
volumes of this on the Naxos label but
they are otherwise only available in
Norway. Einar Steen-Nokleberg is the
pianist providing the same kind of effective
advocacy he did in his complete Greig
recordings. Come on Naxos – this needs
wider circulation as a boxed set. I
have also been exploring some parts
of the Chandos catalogue I had so far
failed to appreciate – for example the
film music of William Alwyn.
As suggested last month, it is particularly
good to be able to read a review on
MusicWeb and hear the whole disc immediately.
For example, the First
Symphony of Boris Tchaikovsky
– the kind of disc I am interested in
but perhaps not quite enough to purchase
without first hearing it. My credit
card statement arrived today reminding
me that the monthly cost of the library
is 15 dollars or £7.89 and it is well
worth it – the perfect distraction from
Hattogate.
Patrick C Waller
