Talk:Musical hoax

List needed

There are tons of musical hoaxes not listed here. Kreisler wrote dozens of them (Caprice Viennois, Tambourin Chinois), etc. Siegfried Ochs snuck "Dank sei Dir, Herr" into the Handel canon, and Anton Schindler had us all believe that "Ta, ta, ta (etc.), lieber Maelzel" was a Beethoven canon.

Anyone interested in helping to construct a fuller list with references, catalog numbers, etc.? Some composers' catalogs (Mozart's, for instance) have big "Spurious" sections.

RogerLustig (talk) 22:15, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Post first, research later--that's me. I see that there is a list of these, more expansive than the one in the article. It points mainly to composers and/or perpetrators. Perhaps this article should be augmented or replaced by a Musical Misattributions category page.

RogerLustig (talk) 22:20, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

• Unnecessary. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Pseudepigraphy Galassi (talk) 23:29, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

If so, then augmentation is necessary. I see no mention anywhere of, say, "L S Bumblebee," the "Boccherini Cello Concerto in B flat", "Haydn's Op. 3", the "Concert du Bébé" or most of the items in the 115 pages of the Koechel 6th edition catalogue of Mozart that are devoted to spurious works.\

Martin Luther may have said it best: "Poor Josquin! Now that he's dead, he's composing more than ever!"

RogerLustig (talk) 01:43, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Peter Schickele?

Doesn't Peter Schickele "discovering" the compositions of P. D. Q. Bach belong here? -- megA (talk) 19:30, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

In what way does Schickele's comedy routine constitute a hoax? Or are you saying it's not funny at all, but pretends to be?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 20:28, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

"A Musical Hoax (or Musical Mystification) is a piece of classical music composed by one individual but intentionally misattributed to another" fits the description. I think they are very funny, btw. Whether one believes the hoax or not is not part of the definition. -- megA (talk) 09:56, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

The difference is that a hoax is making others think X wrote the piece -- that is, the intent. No one actually thinks there was someone named PDQ Bach, but many people did think Kreisler uncovered a bunch of unknown Baroque works. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 18:03, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

It turns out that that definition is of "forgery", rather than "hoax", but I take your point. I still do not see that Schickele ever tried to deceive anyone about the fictitious character of P.D.Q. Bach. A further thought here, though: supposing we were to accept this as a case of hoaxing, should we then also add every other stand-up comedian's fictional character to the list? For example, Gerard Hoffnung and Humphrey Searle's Bruno-Heinz Jaja?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 15:48, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Schieckele definitely does NOT belong here. As to forgery vs. hoax: I see no significant difference.-Galassi (talk) 17:49, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

The lines between these categories are surely vague, but another odd feature of the definition offered above has just struck me: Why is it that musical hoaxes involve only pieces of "classical" music? I would have assumed that hoaxes involving jazz, bluegrass, rock, liturgical music, folksongs, etc. must also exist. Or do they have their own, separate article(s)? In which case, shouldn't this article be renamed "Classical-music hoax" or "Musical hoax (classical)"? Also, do classical forgeries put together by a committee of conspirators fall outside the scope of this article, since the definition states they must be "composed by one individual"?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 18:28, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

You're absolutely right, and the article should change (and perhaps given examples of non-classical). ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 19:59, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

I, for one. am unaware of any non-classical forgeries, aside from JJNiles' "folk-songs". But they are constructed in a rather classical way.-Galassi (talk) 02:03, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Jerome, could you provide at least one example of a committee forgery? -Galassi (talk) 02:27, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

A particularly well-known one, which no doubt should be added to this article, is the 1961 "Piotr Zak" hoax, perpetrated by Hans Keller and Susan Bradshaw, with some assistance by others at the BBC. Another amusing case that occurred in the early 1940s was told me long after the fact by one of the three perpetrators, William Bergsma, but I doubt very much that it can be verified. He and two other graduate students played a prank on a professor who at the time was at last finishing a many-years-long statistical study (in the days before computers a laborious task, indeed) of the harmonies in all of the Bach chorales. The three conspirators each contributed a different skill. One was particularly adept at style imitation, another was expert in historical musical handwriting, the third well-versed in the music-historical context. They created amongst them three "newly discovered" Bach chorales, with a plausible provenance and marginally believable but utterly atypical harmonizations, which would completely unbalance the poor victim's findings. To get around the problem of the paper on which the chorales were copies, the "discoveries" were wired by facsimile. The hoaxers did, however, leave a clue to assure the victim that it was all a joke. The chorales were sent in sequence of increasing outrageousness, the last relying primarily on tritone-related chords. The text for this final chorale made an obvious reference to a genuine Bach chorale—itself one of the more astonishing from a harmonic point of view. The text began "Es ist zuviel".—Jerome Kohl (talk) 05:03, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Categories

Can someone help to confirm that some of the hoaxed composers listed here under Vladimir Vavilov are actual historical figures, as opposed to "non-existent or purported historical individuals"? Anonymous/Caccini, Francesco, and Sarenko are of course well-documented historical persons, but what about the rest: Mikhail Vyssotsky, Andrey Sykhra, and Niccolo Nigrino? A quick check of New Grove does not turn up these names, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are fictitious.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:26, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

They are all real. See Oleg Timofeyev's diss re Russian guitar.-Galassi (talk) 22:56, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll take you word for it. Just wanted to be sure those names didn't actually belong in the other section.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 02:44, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Chedeville and Pastor Fido

I think the collection attributed to Vivaldi by Chedeville needs to be added

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Ch%C3%A9deville — Preceding unsigned comment added by Musicalemur (talk • contribs) 08:43, 2 May 2016 (UTC)