Budget recordings of Alfred Scholz

There is a subset of "classical" releases which are credited to performers who have never been seen or heard in a live performance. Many of these performers are pseudonyms. Why would a release be published under a pseudonym? It could be because the performer has a restrictive contract with a different record label. It could be because the performance has been "borrowed" from its owner. Or perhaps the pseudonym is considered more marketable - for example the well-known pianist M. Bergerich. In the case of an ensemble, it could be a "scratch" ensemble brought togther just for the recording, and which does not have a name.

The most prolific producer of such budget recordings was Alfred Scholz. Scholz sometimes used his own name, sometimes made-up names, and sometimes the names of real people were given credit for performances which were not theirs.

It is not correct to assume any correspondence between the real and fictitious performers - names were mixed and matched liberally. Scholz sold the same recordings to different labels as different artists, and there are examples in MBz of the same performance being credited in two or more distinct ways.

The recordings are usually found on labels including Point and PILZ (as Vienna Masters).

For example, Fake conductors and the Symphonie Fantastique describes how someone collected 170 differently credited recordings of the work, but on studying them found he only had 162 distinct performances.

The following lists are of artists known to be used by Scholz:

Real artists, names used (possibly) fraudulently

A few of these may in fact be the actual artists behind the music. In many cases the names are simply appropriated.

• Hans Swarovsky. Scholz's conducting professor, a real person with some genuine performances of his own on record, his name was also used by Scholz on recordings which he did not conduct.
• Hans Zanotelli. Another real person whose name was used.
• Hanspeter Gmür
• Bystrík Režucha. Conductor of the Slovenská filharmónia
• Martin Sieghart
• Zdeněk Košler. Conductor of the Česká filharmonie.
• Milan Horvat. Conductor of the Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien
• János Sándor

• Nürnberger Symphoniker
• London Festival Orchestra. Decca studio orchestra from the 1950s, often credited alongside Henry Adolph and Alberto Lizzio (see below). As their history prior to the Ross Pople era (1980s) is a little fuzzy, and given the quantity of fictitious artist names that follow the pattern “(something) Festival Orchestra” this may be at least semi-legitimate.
• Münchener Kammerorchester
• Münchner Philharmoniker
• Philharmonia Orchestra
• Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
• Camerata Salzburg
• Slovenská filharmónia. Not to be confused with the fictitious Philharmonia Slovenska.
• Stuttgarter Kammerorchester
• Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien
• Orchestre radio-symphonique de Paris
• Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra
• Symfonický orchester Slovenského rozhlasu
• Eberhard Kraus (organist)
• Kurt Redel (conductor)
• Mozarteumorchester Salzburg
• Dubravka Tomšič (pianist)
• Anton Nanut (conductor)
• Simfonični orkester RTV Slovenija

Conductors

Some of these are possibly real. More research is needed.

• Henry Adolph.
• Cesare Cantieri.
• Eugen Duvier. Probably - needs further investigation.
• Alberto Lizzio. Wikipedia states that Scholz wrote a fictitious biography stating that this was his father.
• Carlo Pantelli. Again, no online photos or bios, recordings mostly with fictitious orchestra Philharmonia Slavonica
• Serge Tchaikov.
• Denis Zsoltay.
• Hymisher Greenburg
• Simon Addison
• Francesco Macci
• Alexander von Pitamic
• Takao Matsumo
• Frank Shipway
• Carl Michalski
• Julian Armstrong
• Loic Bertrand
• Pavel Urbanek
• Georg Hlinka
• Jan Zybnovsky
• Sven Bengtson

Ensembles

• Süddeutsche Philharmonie (South German Philharmonic). This "was a short-lived pick-up ensemble assembled by Scholz from members of the Czech Philharmonic in Prague and the Bamberg Symphony around 1968".
• Norddeutsche Philharmonie. You can probably see the pattern here.
• Philharmonia Slavonica. According to one unsourced WP article, “the performances attributed to them are often by the Austrian Radio (ORF) Orchestra."
• Camerata Romana
• The European Philharmonic Orchestra
• The English Philharmonic Orchestra
• Musici di San Marco
• Tokyo Festival Orchestra
• Mozart Festival Orchestra
• Festivalový orchestr Praha
• Great Festival Orchestra
• London Festival Chorus
• Great Festival Chorus
• “Pro Arte Orchester” (similarly-named to Pro Arte Munich)

Soloists

• M. Bergerich (piano). Apparently drawing on the name recognition of Martha Argerich
• Dieter Goldmann (piano). I can't find any biographical information about him, and he is a frequent performer on Scholz's recordings.
• Mario-Ratko Delorko (piano). Ratko Delorko is a real pianist, but I can’t find any reliable source for him having an omitted “Mario-” in his first name. This artist should probably be split (or the genuine Ratko Delorko should be added)
• Michael Rosengarten (piano)
• Maria Novak (piano)
• René Nuton (organ)
• Kamil Sreter (bassoon, horn)
• Sabine Lenz (bassoon)

Question

What is the best way to record these performances in the database? In particular, where a single performance, with identical acoustic fingerprint, is credited to two or more sets of performers, how should they be credited?

See the Talk page.

See also

• Naxos bio of Hans Swarovsky
• rec.music.classical.recordings for some relevant discussions
  • Henry Adolph, Anton Nanut, Eugen Duvier, Alfred Scholz - Who the hell are they?
  • Anybody Know Anything About Alfred Scholz or Henry Adolph?
• Anton Bruckner - Discographic Horrors