Music Lovers Hoaxed

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31662, 24 April 1968, Page 23

Music Lovers Hoaxed

(N.Z. Presg Assn.—Copyright) ZURICH (Switzerland), April 22. An audience of 2000 music lovers sat enraptured while the brilliant Russian pianist played a concert of Beethoven, Prokofiev and Liszt. They broke into cheers and shouts of "encore” when he was finished. Many thought they had never heard anything like it. A few moments later they found out how right they were.

While the audience was still cheering, the impresario walked on stage and disclosed they had all been fooled by one of the most daring hoaxes on the modern concert stage The audience, which included Zurich's music critics, had come to the concert on Tuesday night to hear the Russian pianist. Anton Sergeievich Tartarov, play a programme of Beethoven, Prokofiev and Liszt. Tartarov threw in an “improvisation" as a fourth number on the programme.

Soon after Tartarov had left the stage with cheering ringing in his ears, the impresario Haf Keller walked on stage and told the audience it had just heard one of the world’s outstanding pianists "He is no Russian, however, but your countryman. JeanJacques Hauser. And Beethoven's sonata, Prokofiev’s Toccata and Liszt’s variation he played for you just now were in reality his own com positions,” he said.

When Hauser returned to the stage, still wearing the false moustache he had put on to fool the critics and music snobs who might have recog-

nised him from previous concerts, the audience swallowed its pride and applauded wiltily. The “improvisation'’ Hauser played was a variation on a Swiss folk song known to every primary school student. Keller said that he and Hauser decided on the stunt because a young pianist has little chance to make a name for himself in Switzerland these days. Hauser, aged 35, runs a piano school in Bellinzona with his wife, Marsa. “I invented Tartarov to give Hauser an audience free of prejudices,” Keller said The critics, perhaps red-faced after the concert, failed to mention they fell for the hoa., in their reviews. They said Hauser's performance was “good but not quite concert quality."

Fishing-boats Seized.—Three Egyptian fishing-boats which ventured close to the Israeliheld coast near El-Arish. in Northern Sinai, wqre seized by Israeli coastguard craft, and the 26 fishermen aboard detained for questioning.— Tel Aviv, April 22.