Irish pianist John O'Conor has unwittingly been drawn into one of the greatest fraud controversies the classical music world has faced.
The controversy surrounds 119 CDs made by the late English pianist Joyce Hatto. These were claimed last week by Gramophone magazine to include recordings identical to earlier recordings by a range of other pianists, both celebrated and obscure.
On Saturday morning BBC Radio 3's CD Review programme identified Hatto's 1999 recording of Beethoven's Sonata in E, Op. 109 on the Concert Artists label as the same as John O'Conor's 1990 recording for Telarc. The Radio 3 programme played excerpts from the two recordings, and then combined them (one on the left channel and one on the right channel) and they matched perfectly. The likelihood of such matching, even for different recordings by the same performer, is so low as to be negligible.
John O'Conor said last night: "What can I say? If she liked my recording so much that they put it out under her name, then I suppose I'm flattered. On the other hand, it's very sad."
The issues surrounding the recordings first came to light when the Gracenotes database used by Apple's iTunes software identified a Liszt CD by Hatto as being a recording by László Simon on the Swedish BIS label.
Hatto, who died last June, retired from the concert platform in the 1970s and suffered from ill health in the last decades of her life. The issuing of a huge and unknown recorded legacy turned her into a cult celebrity. When she died, the Guardian called her "one of the greatest pianists Britain has ever produced".
Technical tests on Hatto recordings carried out by Pristine Audio and the Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music support the identifications first spotted through iTunes. Performers whose recordings are embroiled in the controversy include another Irish pianist, Philip Martin, for his recording of Sinding's Rustle of Spring.
Concert Artists, a small independent label run by Hatto's husband William Barrington-Coupe, has withdrawn its Hatto recordings, although it is still standing over the authenticity of the Hatto legacy.
