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Monday, February 26, 2007

Although I'm Still Not Sure...


...Joyce Hatto herself was as materially involved as Denis Dutton here suggests, I think he captures the important elements -- as we know them in this unfinished tale -- of the Hatto hoax, in this morning's New York Times.

In particular, there's the bathos everyone fell for: She "record[ed] Beethoven’s Sonata No. 26, 'Les Adieux,' from a wheelchair in her last days ... Nice touch, that, playing Beethoven’s farewell sonata from a wheelchair. ... [The Hatto hoax demonstrates the way] our expectations, our knowledge of a back story, can subtly, or perhaps even crudely, affect our aesthetic response."

Hatto possibly and her husband certainly were plagiarists: They "stole other pianists’ work and, with only a few electronic alterations, sold it as [their] own."