Here’s a weird story – guy sells piano recordings by various people as being the work of his wife, who’s then hailed as a virtuoso.
How fucked up is that? “More than 100 CDs…” – she must have been friggin’ ecstatic.
It was indeed fucked up of him to sell the recordings as his wife’s work to unsuspecting buyers.
But to go through the process for the sake of giving his dying wife a little joy? Romantic and caring and bittersweet, but not fucked up. We’d never even be hearing of this if he had just made the recordings for her alone.
[If he had done it for her alone, fine, I have zero problem with that. But to release over a hundred CDs and sell them – that’s not just a simple romantic gesture – that’s making (or attempting to make) money deceitfully.
And as the Boston Globe pointed out, the wife can’t have been unaware of what he was doing. On the bright side, a couple of minor concert pianists have seen just their profiles suddenly and unexpectedly enhanced.
I recently read this story about the case. It seems that she was a very talented player, but the recordings in question were made as she was dying of cancer.
When I first read that article, I assumed that it was only some of the later recordings that had been doctored to hide the noises she made due to the pain of playing. But it now looks as if none of the CDs was actually truly original. A sad story all round.