In the past few days I have come across three examples of classicasl performers who appear to have been invented by record labels, in particular by two labels that seem to have plagiarised lesser-known recordings by masters of the genre. It's odd that one appears on HMV.
Composers are not "Invented" by these labels, that would be taking the p*ss one step too far. The one exception is of course P.D.Q. Bach, who was made, not begotten, by Peter Schickele
The Aries label based in Reseda California gained some notoriety for releasing BBC recordings of symphonies by Havergal Brian, and using pseudonyms for the performers.
Thanks for the links Laurence, another useful resource for these artists.
I've just spotted another conductor, Alfred Scholz, who once again doesn't have his own Wikipedia entry, though one of his pseudonymss, Alberto Lizzio, does, where there are further links to other imaginary artists.
For all these names, no life dates are to be found.
For something completely different, Dietriech Walther is the fictitious conductor of Beethoven's Second Symphony on ZDF, with Justus Pankau the mythical soloist. In this instance, even the performance itself is non-existent.
Thanks you, SP. I won't worry too much about René Köhler
Yes, I had the Hatto affair in mind, having spoken to Andrew Rose about his work exposing the sad fraud.
There are a variety of situations
Real Person Using a Different Name to avoid a contract dispute if signed to different label / promotor / publisher
Real Person being used by a 3rd Party without authorisation (some Saga/Associated Recordings in UK being one example)
NoName session group etc gathered by the writers or label to perform and record something
Real Person on a Budget Label of larger label recycled into new name . Variation is an overseas recording then repressed into a local market with different name.
Person seeking to avoid publicity due to fame only selling when they wanted the work to speak for itself.
There probably is a list on the net, but I don't think Discogs/Cat/Worlds has full output of every attribution nor of being sure whom the underlying performer is.
There are probably some made up performers in discography books to catch copyists out
Thanks to TheJudge and singlephile for further examples, I'll try to get these suitably 'credited' later.
Another conductor I suspect may be "Invented" is M. Valentino; all I can find on (him) is the glowing praise claimed on the sleeve below for his growing fame around the world
Valentino / M.Valentino The EP is from a Am-Par (American Paramount) LP of 1957 and in 1958 a further LP was issued
Valentino, His Piano & Orchestra – Stairway To Paradise
ABC-Paramount – ABC-217
Given the connection to the film company the conductor would probably be another under a differing name connected to the film company ?