Grand Theft Piano

In the end, only Barrington-Coupe knows the truth. He can look frail, a shock of gray hair framing a friendly, creased face that is hard to distrust. But he has his own shady past. In 1966 he was convicted of evading about $1 million in taxes in what was then the most expensive trial ever at London's Old Bailey court. Once you get him talking about his current scandal, he quickly becomes evasive, ducking under ambiguities and angrily raising his voice when confronted. At one point he claims that the mammoth Steinway across the room was moved to the studio whenever Hatto wanted to record. When an instrument is moved, expert tuning is required. Who was his piano tuner? "I've forgotten the man's name," he says. Would it be written down somewhere? The piano tuner, he says, is "very quiet ... one of those people who doesn't answer his telephone ... He's not an easy man to get hold of." When asked where Hatto made her last recording, which he claims took place in December 2005 or January 2006, he names the West Road Concert Hall in Cambridge. But the manager there, George Unsworth, told NEWSWEEK, "I have checked our detailed diary and can find no trace of any recording that could be traced back to Barrington-Coupe or Joyce Hatto during those months." Faced with this denial, Barrington-Coupe e-mailed a NEWSWEEK reporter, "I was actually testing you out." He then accused the reporter of joining a "witch hunt" against him.

Whether the law will join that hunt is still an open question. Gordon Williams, a media and entertainment lawyer in London, says any case against Barrington-Coupe would be civil, not criminal. "The copyright—owner-in this case, the record com—anies-can choose whether or not to bring the case," he says. "The performer would also have a cause of action if his or her performance has been used without consent." BIS Records' von Bahr has decided not to pursue a claim. But Barrington-Coupe says he's ready to rumble. "I'm not afraid," he says. "It's not such an easy prosecution, because who's lost? They haven't got the answer. If they had, don't you think they would have brought the case already? Who has been hurt? Who's been damaged?"

The pianist Paul Kim, for one. His recording of Olivier Messiaen's "Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jésus" appears to have been ripped off and remarketed as Hatto. "We'd be quick to forgive and to try to understand what might have led him and his wife to do this," the New York-based pianist told NEWSWEEK. "My recording series of the complete piano works of Messiaen was the biggest undertaking of my musical life. It took over a quarter century of rigorous study, performance and, eventually, recording. For someone to take such an important work and so blatantly claim it as her own is totally baffling."

It might not end there. Ernst Lumpe was producer and discographer of the late Italian pianist Sergio Fiorentino, who was signed for a time to the Concert Artist label. After Fiorentino's death in 1998, Barrington-Coupe claimed to possess a number of previously undiscovered Fiorentino recordings. He released them on the Concert Artist label. "I have certain doubts with some of them," says Lumpe. "One in particular is most likely not played by Fiorentino." But he probably won't sue either, explaining, "I personally haven't had any harm from it."

Hatto may be gone, but Hattogate will clearly reverberate in the classical-music world for years. "The most lasting and profound thing that will come out of this story is the questions it raises about authorship," says Inverne. Christopher Howell, himself a pianist, puts it more simply: "It's a bit disconcerting to think that your performance might be improved by someone just twiddling a knob." Yet editing has long been accepted practice in the industry. So what's to stop any old piano tinkerer with a minidisc from selling digitally doctored music? Style, says Distler: "You can't splice style." In his view, Hattogate succeeded only because, for all his faults, "Barrington-Coupe has exquisite taste in pianists." Except, of course, for the one he married.

© 2007