Admission of Fraud
Barrington-Coupe initially denied any wrongdoing but subsequently admitted the fraud in a letter to Robert von Bahr, the head of the Swedish BIS record label that had originally issued some of the recordings plagiarised by Concert Artists. Bahr shared the contents of the letter with Gramophone magazine, which reported the confession on its website on 26 February 2007. Barrington-Coupe claims that Hatto was unaware of the deception, that she would hear the final recordings believing that they were all her own work, and that he acted out of love and made little money from the enterprise, and that he started out by pasting portions of other pianists' recordings into recordings made by Hatto in order to cover up her gasps of pain. Some critics, however, have cast doubt on this version of events, not least James Inverne in "Gramophone". According to the UK Daily Mail:
| “ | Many critics, however, are convinced that Hatto herself was always part of the scheme and that some of her motivation was to 'cock a snook' at the British musical establishment for their failure to recognise her talents by a confidence trick that drew their attention to it. | ” |
The discovery of plagiarised tracks on a Concert Artist compact disc released under the name of pianist Sergio Fiorentino raised further questions. Barrington-Coupe has so far refused to help identify the sources of the recordings issued under Hatto's name, claiming that "whatever I do, it won't be enough".
Read more about this topic: Joyce Hatto
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