Even when Hatto favors slower than common tempos...every note sings, speaks, and breathes, every texture radiates color and nuance, while the two hands imaginatively yet subtly interact with, complement, and support each other...Hatto's addictively beautiful sonority, cultured musicianship, and total instrumental mastery yield new insights with each subsequent hearing. Keep the excellent space-saving budget box cycles by Schiff , Uchida and Würtz on hand for drop-in guests, but save Hatto's Mozart for connoisseurs, and ultimately for the desert island.

This passage comes from the Classics Today review of Joyce Hatto's recording of Mozart's complete piano sonatas. The review is preceded by the following recently posted statement:-

In the wake of the late-breaking scandal concerning the provenance of Joyce Hatto's recordings, we had the option of removing all Hatto reviews, or leaving them intact and identifying the correct artists, to the extent possible, as we learn them. We have elected the latter, both as a caution and as a way to do some justice to the real artists as we learn their identities. This set is believed to have been taken, at least in part, from Ingrid Haebler's Mozart cycle on Denon.

Hatto was a little-known pianist who, following withdrawal from the concert circuit, garnered a reputation as an exceptional soloist based on a series of exceptional recordings of works from the classical piano canon, this in spite of suffering from a debilitating and painful cancer, which finally took her life last year.

While critics eulogised and praised her as one of greatest British pianists of all time, technology was poised to bring her reputation crashing down. An American fan was surprised to find his iPod's music recognition feature attributing Hatto’s rendition of Liszt’s Transcendental Studies to Hungarian pianist Laszlo Simon. Subsequent re-evaluation of Hatto's works has revealed that many, if not all, of her later recordings have been lifted from other pianists.

Her husband William Barrington-Coupe has now admitted to doctoring her recordings, although it seems that in many cases that outright misappropriation would be a more accurate description of his activities.

This revelation brings embarrassment to many. Classical music buffs have been hoodwinked. To give them some credit, they have praised Hatto-attributed recordings which turn out to have been played by Vladimir Ashkenazy, but the fact that no-one was able to identify the maestro's playing shatters some illusions about the ears classical cognoscenti. More inexplicably, they have given equal praise to the recordings now found to have been stolen from the far more obscure Mr Simon. However, it does occur to me that this reveals as much about the nature of the piano as it does about the discrimination of the critics. I sincerely doubt that the same deception could have been perpetrated by a violinist.

String instruments give a great deal of room for expression. Every vibrato, glissando and even bow technique gives the player a chance to express themselves within the framework of the piece. The piano is an astonishingly evocative instrument in the hands of a master , but this deception shows that the ability of these masters to carve their individual character onto the music is limited. Great players are revealed by their dexterity rather than their ability to express their personality. Great composers make great piano music - great pianists reveal themselves largely through their ability to bring the composer's music to life. This may be scornfully denied by classical snobs, but the Hatto case reveals that the Emperor (and perhaps his concerto too) has fewer clothes than previously believed.