Music Trade Review

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THE
MUSiC TRADE
REVIEW
Extremely Low Salaries Paid Musicians in Germany—Range from $250 Per Year for Orchestra
Members to $1,250 for Conductors—Contrast to High Salaries Paid Foreigners in America
—Wanamaker's Summer Concerts—Active Season Promised—Orchestras in Western Cities
—Katherine Goodson Coming to America Soon—Rights of the Dramatic Critic.
In view of the fact that foreign musicians of
various ranks and grades secure magnificent
salaries in this country, it may be interesting to
present some of the views of a German authority
which have been reproduced in The Review of
Reviews with comments:
A recent article in the Soziale Praxis, Berlin,
discusses wage and salary conditions among the
German musicians. The writer refers to the
"desperate position of the majority of German
musicians that has been given wide discussion
recently in the columns of the press." The
musicians themselves, through their organiza-
tion, the Allgemeine Deutsch Musikverein, have
also tried to remedy the situation by petitions
and appeals to the public and government. But
so far these efforts have not been fruitful. In
order to appreciate, however, the importance of
the question attention is called to two recent
books which should be read by everyone inter-
ested in German music. The first of these books
is "Die Sociale Lage der Deutschen Orchester-
musiker," by Paul Marsop (Schuster & Loemer,
Berlin), and the other is entitled "Die Lage der
Orchestermusiker in Deutschland," by Dr. Hein-
rich Waltz (G. Braunschen, Karlsruhe).
According to Dr. Waltz, the situation may be
summed up in the statement that with few ex-
ceptions "the position to-day of the orchestra
musician in Germany is a precarious one."
The exceptions to this rule are members of the
great orchestras, although even in these cases
only the first positions are well paid. The two
leaders at the Imperial Prussian Opera House
receive $1,250 a year, but this is an unusually
high wage; and in the larger court and city
theatres the pay of the orchestra musicians is
notoriously insufficient. The Soziale Praxis says:
"The tables which Waltz publishes show how
filled with care and denial is the existence of
those artists, and how little their material life is
fitted to strengthen them for the great bodily
and mental exertions which they are compelled
to make. Musicians who have to fulfill the
highest artistic demands—for example, the mem-
bers of the Hamburg Stadttheatre orchestra—
receive only $350 a year, and in the smaller
towns, as Rostock, Wurzburg, Nuremburg, which
must have their Wagner performances, the pay
is from $20 to $25 a month."
The season in the larger theatres is about
nine months, but in the smaller it is only from
November to Palm Sunday. The rest of the
time the personnel must live as best it can.
Therefore the places in the summer resort or-
chestras are eagerly sought. A position at one
of the great resorts, however, merely assures the
musician a bare living, obtained at a great ex-
penditure of labor. In many instances the men
must play three times daily in wind and rain,
and even when there are not so many perform-
ances the work is rigorous to a degree. More-
over, in the great resorts, Homburg, Kreuznach,
Kissengen, the salary is only from $27.50 to
$40 a month, and in the smaller," Bad Reinerz,
Salzungen, Landeck, the wage is from $17.50 to
$27.50 a month. In connection with these state-
ments it should be said that the musician has
little or no time to earn additional money. At
best only violinists and 'cellists can earn a little
extra, but these men are usually obliged to hold
themselves always at the disposition of the
leader. Thus they are in no sense masters of
even a small portion of their day.
POOLE
These pitiful salaries are arrayed against a
constantly increasing artistic demand. The
work which the musician must do to-day is
vastly greater than that which was required
thirty years ago. Mere waltzes and marches are
no longer sufficient. There must be grand opera
and symphony concerts. Dr. Waltz says that
from thirty-six to thirty-eight hours are spent in
public every week by the average German musi-
cian, and this does not include the many hours
spent in practice and rehearsals.
The position of the higher class musicians is
dependent enough, but it appears favorable when
compared to that of the men in the music halls,
beer gardens and similar places. These musi-
cians belong to no orchestra, and they play when
and where they can. But they naturally suffer
from the irregularity of their work, and they
are also compelled to accept any price that may
be offered. I t frequently happens, as the Fach-
zeitung fur Zivilmusiker reports, that these men
play for six or eight hours at a ball or other
entertainment for $1 or 75 cents; and it ap-
pears from a canvass made by a musical organi-
zation that in Berlin 26 per cent, of the indepen-
dent musicians do not earn $12.50 a month, and
44 per cent, do not receive $15. In the small
orchestras which share the profits the pay is
little better. In Heidelberg, for example, the
members of a "mutual" orchestra receive $225
annually, and in Gera the receipts were, for a
stated period, only $50 to $75 a head.
* • *
During the heated season Wanamaker has still
been maintaining the musical attractions of his
concert hall as a feature. The organ and the
Auxetophone have been contributing forces. The
features of some of the big department stores
are arranged so that if you happen to be shop-
ping at the stores when the music room is work-
ing you can get ten minutes of Rubinstein with
a yard of tape, and you can jump from bargains
in shirt waists to Beethoven's symphonies
with hardly so much as a skirt's swish, and if
you like you can time your steps between the
counters on the music room floor to the rag-time
melodies that float out and out through the
palm foliage. These music room attachments
not only soothe the souls of customers., but it has
been carefully figured out that from them a
direct profit can be traced. Good music has an
analogous effect to old wine—when one's nature
has had its rough corners rubbed off by a favo-
rite melody there isn't much thinking over the
price of an article. After she has listened to one
of Tosti's waltz songs in the music room, the
up-to-date woman will walk out and just buy
what she wants.
* * *
The season promises to be an unusually active
one, and just now leading musicians are re-
cuperating in the mountains, by the seashore, or
enjoying themselves by foreign travel. New
York promises a season of unusual attractions,
and the leading piano manufacturers will have
a number of talented artists who will be heard
on the platform during the fall and winter.
* * *
More and more of our Western cities are be-
coming ambitious to have orchestras of their
own. St. Paul has lately been heard from. In
that city public-spirited citizens have contributed
$25,000 a year for an orchestra; and its director,
Chevalier N. B. Emanuel, is busy making ar-
1? ITXIV (fa ^S
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6 and 7 APPLETON STREET.
11
rangements for the coming season. Under his
baton seven symphony concerts will be given,
besides twenty popular Sunday afternoon con-
certs in the new St. Paul Auditorium. His aim
is to do for that region what Theodore Thomas
did for Chicago. He is a firm believer in Amer-
ican composers, and his first program will in-
clude MacDowell's "Indian Suite." The orches-
tra consists of sixty-five players.
• * * *
Miss Katharine Goodson, the distinguished
English pianist, who made such a distinct hit
on the occasion of her American debut with the
Boston Symphony Orchestra last season, is com-
ing to America in time to appear as soloist at
the great Worcester Festival on the occasion of
its fiftieth anniversary in October. On this occa-
sion Miss Goodson will play the new Pianoforte
Concerto (its first performance in America), by
the English composer, Arthur Hinton.
She is then engaged to play with the Phila-
delphia Orchestra, the Boston Orchestra, the
Theodore Thomas Orchestra, St. Paul Orchestra,
MISS KATHARINE OOODSOX.
the Hartford Orchestra, the Kneisel Quartet, and
so on, and so on.
Miss Goodson writes from London that she
has secured some very Interesting novelties by
French and Russian composers, which she will
present for the first time during her next Amer-
ican tour.
She has played during the present season in
London with Kubelik, the Kreutzer Sonata, and
their performance stood among the notable suc-
cesses of the season.
Miss Goodson has been engaged to play before
a particularly large number of musical clubs
for women, and no wonder, for her consummate
art and her winsome personality form a com-
bination which is most attractive. This photo-
graph is a very recent one, and shows Miss
Goodson in her own music room in her London
home.
* * • *
If a theatrical or operatic manager has a
right to exclude a newspaper critic on the
ground that he is an* objectionable person, it may
reasonably be asked how far that right is to
extend. He may be inviting the public to a
veritable flretrap. I t would be very convenient
then for him to take it into his head that all
representatives of the press were objectionable
persons, as, indeed, under such circumstances
they probably would be—to him. If, again, a
critic is an objectionable person in a theatre, it
is easy to see how a technical writer might be
Appeal to cultivated tastes. They are
marvels of beauty and form a t once a
valuable accessory to any piano store
BOSTON, MASS.