RE: Ouch! (A new payment scheme for klezmer?)

[music <music...>]

Herewith, for general edification or general wincing, a recent New York Times 
piece on a, um, new
approach to paying symphony orchestra members (plus two letters to the editor 
that followed)  -- 
Anyone want to try this with klezmer ensembles?

(Only kidding -- I think)

Beethoven: Unfair to Labor!
By JAMES R. OESTREICH
 
HIS is the last thing American orchestra managers needed to hear just now, as 
several of the most prominent
orchestras negotiate new contracts with their players.

>From Bonn (Beethoven's birthplace) comes word that violinists of the Beethoven 
>Orchestra are suing to be paid
more than their wind- and percussion-playing colleagues, because they produce 
more music. In most of the
orchestral literature, the argument runs, the strings play almost continuously, 
but the brasses, for example,
tend to play in bursts, often widely separated, when they play at all.

The Bonn musicians are hardly the first to have noticed. There have been steady 
rumblings in most orchestras
about disproportionate workloads and the unusual demands of certain works. But 
a grudging collegiality tends to
hold sway, if only for practical reasons. Any attempt to quantify the 
contributions of the various sections or
individuals in an orchestra would soon bog down in a numerical morass that 
would scare off even accountants.

The reports from Bonn framed the issue, nonsensically, in terms of the number 
of notes played. Why nonsense?

Because there are notes, and there are notes. To stick with Beethoven, take a 
simple passage, selected more or
less at random, from the scherzo of the Ninth Symphony (measures 77-92). In 
these 16 bars, the first violins
play 34 notes; the second oboist, 16. But the oboist's are measure-filling 
dotted half notes, tied together,
demanding an almost constant expenditure of breath. The violinists play three 
notes in most measures but don't
play at all in four of them. Comparisons are not only odious, they are 
impossible.

And there are myriad other such trivialities. But there are also more vital 
issues. Various instrumentalists
face different strains, both psychological (an oboist's solo line is 
mercilessly exposed, whereas string
players can sometimes achieve anonymity in numbers) and physical (brass players 
and percussionists are more
susceptible to hearing loss from their own instruments than string players).

These are all imponderables, and that is how they are typically left. But what 
happens if the German violinists
win their case?

American orchestra managers will undoubtedly pull out what hair they have left 
in these economically trying
times. And audiences in Bonn, who probably get their fill of Brahms to begin 
with, may hear a lot of his
Serenade No. 2, a charming piece that is not often performed, because it is 
written for an orchestra that
pointedly excludes violins.


March 30, 2004
A Penny a Note, but Nothing for the Rest? 

To the Editor:

A March 25 Arts Briefing item reports that the 16 violinists in the Beethoven 
Orchestra in Bonn are seeking
additional pay because they have to "read and play `extra notes.' "

What counts as a note? A string player should be able to make a few bucks off a 
glissando alone, especially a
long one. (Trombone glissandos can only go a tritone, so a trombonist's 
lifetime earning potential would be
more limited.) And should a whole note be worth four times as much as a quarter 
note?

Pity the poor percussionists: given how few notes are played on timpani (or, 
worse, a triangle), how could they
possibly make a living?

This could affect concert programming as well. For example, if the orchestra 
gets low on cash, that's the end
of Bruckner for that season.

And where does this leave the pianist? After all, a piano plays a great deal 
more notes than a violin. Indeed,
since each note on a piano is actually three strings, pianists could ask to be 
paid on a "per string" basis.
This could bankrupt an orchestra in no time.   

TONY ALTERMAN
IAN ALTERMAN
New York, March 27, 2004


To the Editor:

Those mercenary Beethoven Orchestra fiddlers in Bonn are lucky that Sir Rudolf 
Bing is not around to respond to
their lawsuit for more pay per note ("Beethoven: Unfair to Labor!," Week in 
Review, March 28).

I recall my first season (1961) in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra when, to 
protest the seven-performance and
heavy rehearsal schedule, I was on a hastily formed string committee to appeal 
for "work relief or some
financial compensation."

Sir Rudolf welcomed us into his office with a wry smile, leaned back in his 
chair and listened to our
spokesman, David Berkowitz (a violist), explain that if we were paid a penny a 
note, we string players would be
millionaires after one Wagner "Ring" cycle.

"Gentlemen," replied Sir Rudolf softly, "as far as I am concerned, I wish you 
would stay home and permit me to
mail you your paychecks."

Crestfallen, we left, but not before Dave courageously expressed our 
disappointment with our director's
"arrogant" response.

Sir Rudolf, to our surprise, did not castigate the violist for his parting 
salvo. But in his 1981 memoir, "A
Knight at the Opera," he listed all the Met singers, conductors, choreographers 
and ballet dancers in an
appendix, which, he wrote, "represents the total artistic roster" of the Met 
during his tenure of 22 years ?
yet conveniently omitted the members of the orchestra.   

LES DREYER
New York, March 28, 2004





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