Joyce Hatto (1928-2006)

I just received word that Joyce Hatto died this week. Sadly, the name will be unknown to all but a very few aficionados, yet here was not only one of the very last remaining genuine "old school" pianists, but to some ears the world's greatest living pianist. I've been unable to find so much as an obituary.

Ms. Hatto retired from performing in the 1970s prompted by a battle with cancer (and an ignorant critic who wrote that it's impolite to look sick onstage), yet she quietly went on to record no less than virtually the entire piano repertoire.

I say "quietly" because nearly no one knows. Her widower, William Barrington-Coupe, runs a small record label in her native England, and she recorded well over a hundred CDs -- larger than the lifetime work of Artur Rubinstein -- containing, among (many) other things, the complete piano works of Chopin, Schumann, Brahms and Rachmaninoff, as well as all the piano sonatas of Mozart, Beethoven and Prokofiev. At 75, she recorded no less than all 53 Chopin-Godowsky Etudes, which are considered the most technically difficult works in the repertoire! The recordings have only limited distribution and do not benefit from major-label marketing.

What's so significant about Joyce Hatto, beyond her spectacular and insightful playing, is her training, which comes straight from the 19th century and was rare even for her time. Quite simply, Joyce Hatto represented a generation of musicians that, by virtue of its musical pedigree, no longer exists. The significance of this statement cannot be overemphasized. Her piano teachers included Busoni pupil Serge Krish, Alfred Cortot, Zbigniew Drzewiecki in Warsaw and Ilona Kabos of Hungary; in addition, she studied composition with no less than Paul Hindemith and Nadia Boulanger. These musicians, who represented the height of musical culture and attainment, possessed a collective and even objective knowledge about the entire mental and physical approach to making music that so tragically became one among millions of casualties of two world wars.

Ms. Hatto was absolutely correct to say that there is a right way to play the piano. She delineates a handful of principles beginning with "The mind plays the piano" in a 2005 interview. While each principle may appear commonsensical to varying degrees, I dare say it will be impossible to understand just what she means without the benefit of this extensive and intricately detailed training. While "The hand is not prepared in any way" may strike some as odd (although it is absolutely correct), "The mind instructs the whole arm to be totally relaxed all the time" seems easy enough to comprehend, yet how to achieve it and its implications for piano playing simply cannot be explicated verbally and must be demonstrated one on one by a teacher entirely schooled in the 19th-century tradition.

It demands countless hours of the most concentrated work and the utmost in pedagogical guidance if one is to play properly, as there are very precise events that must occur in the mind before they can be expressed in sound via the body. The requisite musical cognition cannot be merely "intuited," and any student would be well-advised to avoid the various fraudulent methods for "freeing" their techniques, no matter how well marketed they may be.

Joyce Hatto was one of the tiniest handful of living pianists completely schooled in the 19th-century tradition. (I've had the incalculable benefit of extensive training with another, Sally Sargent, also a Boulanger student and Busoni "grand-student," who has dedicated her life to the preservation of this tradition, and I can swear that this method of playing is the definitive answer to all matters of sound and technique. It is also how the great pianists of the past played, as it stems directly from them, and there exists abundant photographical and videographical evidence to demonstrate this fact beyond all doubt.)

It is indeed tragic that Joyce Hatto never received the widespread recognition that was her proper due. Thankfully, she has left a legacy that will reward a lifetime of listening -- perhaps posthumously she will receive her due after all.