When we hear the word "plagiarism", we generally think of high-school or college students trying to slide by in composition classes. Indeed, the word seems to have a meaning that we by convention restrict to a literary context. It's easy to see how one can copy the writing of another, but what about sound?
The incredible story of Joyce Hatto, retold in this month's New Yorker, shows us how far the definition of that word might be stretched. Over a period of almost twenty years, Hatto and her husband constructed an elaborate deception; piecing together recordings by dozens of artists, labeling them as performances by Joyce, and "releasing" them under a phony label. Over the course of time they convinced music critics and connoisseurs alike that she was a great performer, one of the finest pianists no one had ever heard of. The story is at turns fascinating and appalling and stands as a cautionary tale for us all: something that sounds too good to be true, most likely is...
HT: Alex Ross
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