Some help and understanding needed

I spoke to Joyce Hatto's husband yesterday. William Barrington-Coupe runs the Concert Artist record label that is at the centre of the controversy over the provenance of some of Ms Hatto's CDs. I had been disturbed by the tone of some of the coverage of this story, and thought it might be useful to do the obvious, and speak to the person at the centre of the story.

We spoke for a few minutes, and Mr Barrington-Coupe said he had read the stories on the websites and 'was not running away'. But he asked for questions to be put in writing, and undertook to answer them in twenty-four hours. I submitted six questions, twenty-four hours have elapsed, and I don't have any answers.

I am not surprised I haven't heard from him, and in a strange way I'm relieved. Mr Barrington-Coupe sounded like somebody who needs some help and understanding, irrespective of the facts behind the story. I can offer no information on the source of the disputed recordings. But perhaps we should all remember compact discs are not the most important things in this world.

If I hear back from Mr Barrington-Coupe I will publish his responses. Meanwhile I am moving on to another subject.

Related posts are Pointed questions raised in musical circles, and Faking it in early music.
Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Comments

Pliable said…
Walter DeWald writes:

Those who allegedly perpetrated this coax may deserve our pity. However, I find this story to be important for another reason.

The fact that this supposed deception went undetected for months shows that many reviewers don't listen carefully (or even completely) to the recordings they review and that these lazy, ill-informed critics are always eager to tout the "flavor of the month."

WD
5:27 pm
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