Joyce Hatto - a Whodunit . with audio sample

Make that, a "Whoplayedit"!  The usually sedate classical music recording world has been rocked this week by what appears to be a hoax of rather unbelievable proportions but with no understandable motive.  The recently discovered and lionized Joyce Hatto had an output of 100+ recordings which included full sets of piano music by almost every well-known composer and playing of consistently high caliber. "How was that possible?" ...

Apparently it wasn't, in this case.   My own site has carried since late 2002 the brief excerpt of the Liszt Mephisto Waltz, first heard in a forum listening group, that started the buzz among classical piano aficionados.  I've updated the page to include the recent news articles and editorials along with the older articles I link to there.  I was an admirer of "Hatto"'s pianism.

 Gramophone's editor, James Inverne, told The Telegraph that it is "just the most amazing scandal in the polite world of classical music."  That's definitely a polite statement.

    The mystery and detective work includes determining the identities of the pianists whose performances were rightfully praised and the reasoning behind the deceptions.  One possible scenario voiced in several forums is that Hatto recorded in the studio while battling cancer but did not hear what was sent out in the final versions -- the project focus, by her husband of 30+ years, was to provide motivation and will.  That's of course a HUGE stretch though.      More here ...

Jon Stewart on "Dobbs to Blitzer"

The news these days is pretty awful and, as mentioned, tends to leave me speechless since I don't like to concentrate on hideous stuff much.
I've provided at the right a list of  blog sites to get the latest very quickly, at any time.  But every blog does that.  I'm adding something today that just really tickled me.

Here's Rachel Sklar's Huffington Post gift of a videoclip from Stewart's show that really made me laugh.  Many will have seen it when it was broadcast.

I also wanted to keep a comment here from "Ramirez" who wrote the below at Huffington Post to Rachel Sklar's blog entry on Stewart's video segment of the priceless Dobbs-to-Blitzer segue.

"To be fair, I kinda like both these guys.
    Blitzer presents tabloid stories straight from supermarket
checkout and does it in a serious, straight-faced journalistic manner.
    Dobbs covers serious issues and presents them as simplistic,
cartoon-style, tabloid journalism with plenty of table-pounding
outrage that's fun for the whole family."

I like both those shows, but that's not a bad summing up !