Friday, May 1, 2020
Tuesday, April 28, 2020
PROOF! Chopin recording is a BLOODY FAKE
I just received this gem by email, helping solve at least part of the mystery of the Great Chopin Minute Waltz Hoax. Link to the original blog post is here:
Sent: Monday, April 27, 2020 3:42 PM
To: magunning@telus.net
Subject: blog Chopin Minute Waltz
I
just read your blog from September 2019 entitled HOAX! The musical fossil
that fooled the world. Well done. I am a classical musician in Tampa, FL,
and I obsess over anything related to Chopin. Today, I was browsing the New York
Philharmonic’s on-line digital archives, and I happened upon some scanned pages
from a Chopin file kept by musicologist, Edward Downes. One of the pages in the
file is a scanned article from the April 1991 edition of Classic CD
magazine entitled “The first recording ever.” By the note that Downes scribbled
around the article, it appears to have been given him by radio host George
Jellinek. Downes uses the word “hoax” in his note from 1991. I thought you might
find this article interesting, since in your blog you state you couldn’t find
much information in your Google search. Your blog was one of the few references
I could find on the topic in my search today. Article is attached.
Thanks to Chase White for enlightening me and - at the same time - brightening my very grey day!
Stay safe!
Chase White
Tampa, FL
(BLOGGER'S RESPONSE): Just when I get totally disenchanted with the internet, something like this happens! Well, something like this has NEVER happened. I even thought I was a little nuts for remembering it, because it’s barely on the internet at all. I remembered hearing the supposed Chopin recording on a CBC classical music show called Off the Record. The host was skeptical, even before anyone else debunked it. To me, it sounded like a lot of bumpy noise, barely pianistic, played insanely fast, with a distorted-sounding yell at the end. The host listened to it, compared it to Piltdown Man, and played it again. It did sound less genuine on second hearing. We do hear what we want to hear, I think.
I forgot all about it for a long time, then when the Leon Scott recordings came to light, I thought of it again because it was the same kind of recording technology. In fact, my first reaction to THAT finding was, “Hoax!”, maybe an extreme form of autotune. But the Chopin thing now seems so howlingly fake: some fellow named Sot (can’t find HIM anywhere), and the marvelling over Chopin’s technique (you couldn’t hear anything!) and his dexterity in playing it in one minute. Liberace had a big clock up on the stage when he pulled THAT stunt. It would be interesting if one of the CDs actually came to light so you could hear it. Who knows how many of them went out with that magazine, and on April 1, no less. I’ve also heard recordings by Brahms that sounded pretty fake. Forgive me if all this is on my original blog post, I haven’t looked at it in a long time!
I forgot all about it for a long time, then when the Leon Scott recordings came to light, I thought of it again because it was the same kind of recording technology. In fact, my first reaction to THAT finding was, “Hoax!”, maybe an extreme form of autotune. But the Chopin thing now seems so howlingly fake: some fellow named Sot (can’t find HIM anywhere), and the marvelling over Chopin’s technique (you couldn’t hear anything!) and his dexterity in playing it in one minute. Liberace had a big clock up on the stage when he pulled THAT stunt. It would be interesting if one of the CDs actually came to light so you could hear it. Who knows how many of them went out with that magazine, and on April 1, no less. I’ve also heard recordings by Brahms that sounded pretty fake. Forgive me if all this is on my original blog post, I haven’t looked at it in a long time!
Be well, also. This is an insane time!
These are hilarious recordings, I think!
Margaret G.
P. S. I just remembered a little detail in the unmasking of this hoax. Bob Kerr, host of Off the Record, detected a false note in the CD catalogue number, which begins with XOHA. He interpreted the “XO” as “hugs and kisses”, and “HA” as – well, HA! And on April Fool’s day, yet. Thanks for sending me this, it made the lockdown a little cheerier.
P. S. I just remembered a little detail in the unmasking of this hoax. Bob Kerr, host of Off the Record, detected a false note in the CD catalogue number, which begins with XOHA. He interpreted the “XO” as “hugs and kisses”, and “HA” as – well, HA! And on April Fool’s day, yet. Thanks for sending me this, it made the lockdown a little cheerier.
Thanks to Chase White for enlightening me and - at the same time - brightening my very grey day!
HA!
Sunday, April 26, 2020
Thursday, April 23, 2020
Wednesday, April 22, 2020
Tuesday, April 21, 2020
ONE HUNDRED YEARS of film logos!
A lot of people fnd old film logos creepy, or even scary. Not sure why they exude such strangeness. Pathe beats them all in the flapping, crowing rooster design. The accompanying music is nearly as disturbing.
Friday, April 17, 2020
Thursday, April 16, 2020
Coots on Como!
Right now, with the world on lockdown, nature is my only escape. I try to get out every day, and this time I noticed the coots with their weird football-shaped bodies, white triangular bills and head-bobbing motion as they swim. They have most un-ducklike feet, long-legged and spongy. I've never seen a baby coot, a "cootlet", but how I long to! Today I saw our first three Canada goose goslings, so perhaps there is hope for a renewal in these most desperate of times.
Monday, April 13, 2020
Friday, April 10, 2020
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