William Barrington-Coupe: Difference between revisions

Barrington-Coupe was born in [[Llanelli]] but grew up in [[Lewisham]] in London,<ref>{{Cite web|title=William H B Coupe|url=https://www.ancestry.co.uk/family-tree/person/tree/17400900/person/1061889270/facts?_phsrc=yuU5244&_phstart=successSource|access-date=2021-03-23|website=www.ancestry.co.uk}}</ref> where he worked as a classical musicians' agent in the early 1950s. In January 1952 he applied for a licenselicence to carry on an employment agency for concert artists,<ref>{{Cite news|date=24 January 1952|title=Employment Agency Licence|page=8|work=[[The Stage]]}}</ref> and in October 1953 he promoted a concert at the [[Wigmore Hall]] by the pianist Gordon Rodda.<ref>{{Cite news|date=16 October 1953|title=Wigmore Hall|page=20|work=[[Truth (British periodical)|Truth]]}}</ref> A directory from 1953 to 1954 showed him with two exclusive artists on his books.<ref>{{cite book |last=Fifield |first=Christopher|title=Ibbs and Tillett: The Rise and Fall of a Musical Empire |year=2005 |publisher=Ashgate Publishing Ltd |isbn=1-84014-290-1|pages=301|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qz-s4zdLCNsC&q=barrington-coupe&pg=PA301 }}</ref>

Barrington-Coupe set up the record label ''Concert Artists'' in 1954 and released a few recordings of his own artists but mainly other recordings obtained under [[Music licensing|licenselicence]].<ref name=":0" /> A 1955 article in ''[[Billboard (magazine)|Billboard]]'' magazine refers to Barrington-Coupe as "President of Concert Artist Record Company, London", licensing Mozart recordings by the "London Mozart Ensemble".<ref>{{cite news

Saga Films had been registered in 1955 by the British pianist Leonard Cassini but his interests soon turned to records. In 1958 he found financial backing from an entrepreneur, Wilfred Alonzo Banks (1913-83), who valued music primarily as a means to turn a fast buck. He did not pretend to know how to run a record label and evidently did not trust Cassini’s business acumen either, so by March 1958 he was employing Barrington-Coupe as his executive producer. At this time, orchestral recording in Britain was subject to strict union rules that made it prohibitively expensive for independent labels. In Hamburg, thethey found a custom recording service who provided session players drawn from local ensembles. Saga sent the pianists [[Sergio Fiorentino]] and Barrington-Coupe's newly-wed wife, [[Joyce Hatto]], and sent its own engineer, [[James Lock (sound engineer)|James Lock]], to the sessions. They also recorded in Copenhagen with pianist [[Eileen Joyce]] (1908-91) and the violinist [[Alan Loveday]]. Cassini persuaded [[Lazar Berman]] to make an LP while on a concert visit to London. Some Russian tapes were procured, so the public was offered quite a substantial selection of LPs, EPs and tapes when the first catalogue was published in September 1958. in 1959 a licensing deal for distribution in the USA was struck with [[Roulette Records|Roulette]], which had no classical titles of its own and created the Forum label specially for its acquisitions. (Roulette marketed the recording of Grieg’s Concerto made by Eileen Joyce as the work of Joyce Hatto.) By 1959 Barrington-Coupe was advertising recordings that had not yet been made including a Beethoven symphony cycle.

In February 1960, Barrington-CoupeeCoupe and record producer [[Joe Meek]] (subsequently known for "[[Telstar (song)|Telstar]]", the 1962 hit by [[the Tornados]]) formed [[Triumph Records (United Kingdom)|Triumph Records]], intending to find a teenage market for pop singles. The two men later fell out and Meek left the company, which then went into liquidation.<ref>[http://www.joemeekpage.info/triumph_1_E.htm The JOE MEEK Page | Triumph Records, Part 1]</ref>

The venture with Meek was followed by ''Dial Records,'' a label set up by 24 year old London-based David Gooch with the intent to promote undiscovered British talent. whoDial produced a number of extended-play and long-playing records. This association was terminated when Barrington-Coupe had obvious financial difficulties.

It was not until 2002 that they were heard of again. During the previous 13 years they had apparently recorded another 103 CDs of Hatto's playing, which Barrington-Coupe began issuing on his Concert Artist label. In 2007, these CDs were found to be fraudulent copies of recordings of other artists issued by other labels.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.classicstoday.com/features/021807-joycehatto.asp|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090717014944/http://www.classicstoday.com/features/021807-joycehatto.asp|url-status=dead|title=Will The Real Joyce Hatto Please Stand Up!<!-- Bot generated title -->|archive-date=17 July 2009|access-date=26 July 2020}}</ref> Barrington-Coupe initially denied any wrongdoing but subsequently admitted the fraud in a letter to Robert von Bahr, the head of the Swedish BIS record label that had originally issued some of the recordings plagiarised by Concert Artist. Bahr immediately shared the contents of the letter with ''[[Gramophone (magazine)|Gramophone]]'' magazine, telling journalist Jessica Duchen afterwards that he "had given a lot of thought" to suing Barrington-Coupe for damages, but was inclined not to do so, on the assumption that the hoax recordings were "a desperate attempt to build a shrine to a dying wife".<ref name="duchen">{{cite news |first=Jessica |last=Duchen |author-link=Jessica Duchen |title=Joyce Hatto: Notes on a scandal |url=http://www.jessicaduchen.co.uk/pdfs/indi-2007/joyce-hatto.pdf |work=The Independent, 26 February 2007 |accessdate=2012-06-10 }}</ref>