Forgery in musical composition aesthetics, history, and the canon

In his widely read 1966 article for High Fidelity magazine, "The Prospects of Recording," pianist Glenn Gould describes Han van Meegeren, the most notorious art forger of the twentieth century, as someone "who for a long time has been high on my list of private heroes." Gould's admiration stemmed from van Meegeren's 1945-47 detention and trial, an international media event during which the Dutch artist was put in the bizarre position of having to prove that he had in fact forged a series of Vermeer portraits sold to high-ranking Nazis, including Hermann Göring.