I am sure that many of your already have heard about the CDs "played
by" Joyce Hatto, recorded and published by her manager-husband.  These
were exposed as plagiarism frauds when they were moved from CD’s to
MP-3 files for the current iPod market.  The story is on-going and
evidently represents the biggest musical hoax ever in the field of
classical music.

CDs "played by Joyce Hatto" turned out to be -- following her recent
death -- performances of Vladimir Ashkenazy, Yefim Bronfman, André
Previn, plus many others.  They also involved Eastern European
orchestras with "Hatto at the piano" that were exposed as the London
Philharmonia Orchestra and the Vienna Philharmonic.  This is still a
breaking news story, involving a host of record labels and artists,
whose performances were copied directly or altered in places through
digital means.

Those interested might want to check these webpages:

    http://www.gramophone.co.uk/newsMainTemplate.asp?storyID=2759&newssectionID=1

and

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joyce_Hatto

(a text with a roster of links to the principals and the "performer victims,"
as it were).

What has this to do with music rolls?

The claim of an artist "recorded" on a music roll and being "repro-
duced" on a player instrument is a musical fraud, but not something
which takes away income from the performer.  There was an old Ampico
ad, with a picture of Rachmaninoff, and the banner "How Would The
Composer Play This Piece?" (being his Prelude in C-Sharp Minor).  The
answer is simple: "Not like the Ampico!"

Today, it's easy to acquire CDs remastered from old 78s and compare the
real Rachmaninoff on Victor Records, who was nothing like the organ-
like dreamy Ampico rolls which bore his name.  Many artists recorded
the same repertoire for the pianola and the phonograph, Rachmaninoff
being a good example.

The loser, in the case of Joyce Hatto on today's audio or of someone
playing "artist rolls," is the customer.  One expected to hear Ms. Hatto
(who on records was a cross between Franz Liszt and Clara Schumann, to
quote a musical friend who is on top of this current scandal).  But
they did not get Ms. Hatto.

One expected to hear Grieg, Gershwin, or Horowitz on an expression
player; but they got the work of an arranger.  In the case of Aeolian,
the rolls by W. Creary Woods were exceptional for factory production
work, but they weren't Hofmann, Paderewski or Gabrilowitsch.  Simi-
larly, J. Milton Delcamp offered Ampico owners Confrey, Friml, or
Levitski.  Buyers got pleasant rolls, but nothing like the audio
recordings which those artists left to us.
 
Mark Lutton, my pianist/composer/computer friend in New Hampshire said
this about what has become known as "Hattogate":

    The Joyce Hatto case is not really comparable with the fake piano
    rolls.  The old rolls were like ghost-written books.  The pianists
    willingly accepted money to endorse the rolls as their own playing.
    The editors who produced the rolls did so as "works for hire."
    They generally received no credit for them, but that was a
    condition of their employment.  The roll companies violated
    nobody's rights.  It was unethical to market the rolls as "hand-
    played" but it wasn't illegal, and "hand-played" wasn't a well-
    defined term.  There were no purely "hand-played" rolls anyway,
    because the recording pianos could not capture the timing and
    dynamics correctly and every roll had to be edited to make it sound
    acceptable.  
    
    In the Hatto case, the producer violated the record companies'
    rights by remastering and reselling the recordings.  He also
    violated the real pianists' rights, but I think that's a separate
    law other than copyright law.  It's plagiarism, passing off someone
    else's work as your own.

Mark certainly puts the issue of fake audio versus fake rolls into the
proper perspective, in my opinion.  In both cases the authenticity of
the performance, while pleasant and often exciting to experience, is
brought into question, and the loser is the customer, who was sold
something that wasn't there.

Rolls should be experienced for what they are: arranged music for a
mechanical instrument medium.  The arranger controls everything, from
the formulaic stepping to the key depression time and pedal effects,
and the rest.  The results can be very good many times.

Enjoy your rolls for the music, without the "pedigree."  As for audio,
be happy if you don't have a phony "Hatto" recording, since the
purchase of one would deprive the real artist and the original record
company of their royalties.

Douglas Henderson,
Artcraft Music Rolls
http://wiscasset.nnei.net/artcraft/