This has nothing to do with unsung composers so flog me with a wet noodle and delete if you wish.
But you may have heard that Maestro Vanska resigned as Music Director of the Mn. Orch. last Tuesday and he and the locked out members of the orchestra are giving farewell concerts last night and today at the University of Minnesota. I fear that this is the end of world class music in Minnesota - the end of a hundred year plus era.
The lockout is now over a year old. November concerts in Carnegie Hall are cancelled. While offering musicians a significant salary cut, the Board was merrily pursuingg a $50,000,000 renovation to the lobby of Orchestra Hall, a move that had to have irritated the musicians (and many of us, as well). IMHO this organization has been mismanaged for at least 10 years.
But, then, we're just former season ticket holders for 57 years......
Jerry
Addendum: See also http://www.newmusicbox.org/articles/kernis-resigns-from-minnesota-orchestra/ (http://www.newmusicbox.org/articles/kernis-resigns-from-minnesota-orchestra/)
Another great loss......
This is indeed very sad and maddening. Growing up, I spent a lot of money on a lot of Minneapolis/Minnesota recordings. Great orchestra, great playing, great conducting. When I could finally afford it, I made several trips to Minneapolis to hear them live. Great memories.
Who's to blame for this? Everyone. Musicians must realize that there isn't the demand for their product that there was 50-60 years ago and that their salaries are not sustainable. The management spends money wrongly. I've heard for years about how superior Minneapolis is to most places because they really value the arts. Really? Then where were they? Did they come to the rescue and open their wallets? They almost lost the St Paul Chamber Orchestra. Now this. We can debate all we want about the relative value of professional musicians and athletes, but to the vast American public, classical music doesn't matter one iota and they couldn't care less if it vanishes from their communities.
I'm sad if a great orchestra and tradition are to go to the wall. Desperate.
I reside in a suburb of Minneapolis, Columbia Heights or cone city as I call it because of the chronic road repair, and to further sprinkle salt into the wound, the professional football team the Vikings, who recently played a game in London is getting a new stadium. Perhaps the answer is to have the musicians return to part time employment to supplement their income, return to a smaller venue where they use to play on the University of Minnesota campus and have fewer concerts. My very first concert was at Northrup auditorium, a young peoples concert hosted by Antal Dorati and the symphony. It was this concert that gave me my first interest in classical music which has never left me.
Tom :(
This seems a desperately sad and badly managed business. I don't know much about the viability problems of US orchestras, but I understand that a number (such as the Philadelphia) have faced similar financial difficulties and have found a way of surviving them.
I see survival in the way I described in another post in this thread.
Tom
US orchestras that have had serious troubles are numerous. Many have had strikes. Some have just closed down. Some survive, but do so by paying low salaries. 60 years ago many orchestras (Cleveland, Chicago, Philadelphia among them) were made up of part-timers who had regular day jobs - the orchestra gig didn't pay that much. They were still fabulous groups, made a name for themselves and made some great recordings. Pro baseball players were in the same boat. Things really changed in the 1960's. Hiring 100+ people and paying them $100,000 or more is no longer viable, although it saddens me that one baseball player (and there are many like this) makes more money than the entire budget of many of our 2nd tier orchestras. Sadly, Minneapolis is only another orchestra that's going to have to reorganize. What a terrible legacy my generation has left for our children and grandchildren.
There will be a day of reckoning eventually on the sports fields too, I'm sure.
As for blaming our generation for what happened, I think that we can certainly take our share of the blame, but shouldn't over burden ourselves with it. To my mind, the real blame lies with the way in which serious music was allowed to develop into an art form which has no relevance or attraction for middle-brow listeners (like me). In the 18th and 19th centuries, most new works which people could hear at concerts or play at home in piano reductions were accessible to at least some degree. Even Wagner made sure that The Ring was deliberately peppered with extractable "bleeding chunks" which would popularise his music amongst a listening public which would never tolerate listening to the whole thing. People respond to melody and harmony, its what they crave, at least to some degree. Once they were pretty much abandoned by the avant garde in the early 20th century, mass audiences were progressively lost to other, baser, forms of music, and our concert programmes began to focus on established repertoire: music which was older and older as the century wore on. The lack of new, exciting, accessible repertoire helped make concertising more and more unattractive to younger audiences, particularly when one factors in the cost, and the easy availability of the whole repertoire in high quality recordings. Of course, we know that nothing replaces the thrill of a good live performance, but we are relative cognoscenti.
I look at the shrinking, mostly elderly audiences of our local, high quality orchestra here in the UK, at the desperate attempts of the management to popularise the programmes by bringing in school parties, using TV celebrities as guest compères and the like, and I fear than even here we are going the same way. The problem is the repertoire, which even now is shrinking more and more, and I suspect that it's too late to fix it, because what is needed is not more of the same, not the infusion of all of our favourite unsung works (much as I'd love it), but accessible, exciting music being written by composers in their 30s and 40s, not their 150s and 180s.
I've over-simplified I know, but excuse me, it's early on Sunday morning.
Both of you are right on the money.
Tom
I would just add this. It seems to me that if in the 1950's, our music directors had started introducing audiences to the Raffs, Ries, Gernsheims, Reineckes, Hadleys and the lesser known albeit lovely pieces by Elgar, Delius, even Dvorak and others who were writing good tunes instead of forcing us to sit through Walter Piston, Penderecki, Creston and this list goes on and on. There are alot of folks who believe that only Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff and a handful of others ever wrote a memorable melody.
Yes, and the $100K musicians have driven ticket prices up and up. Younger folks will pay $130 for a poor seat to see Jeff Dunham but not $75 to listen to a great orchestra......
Sad.....
Jerry
Well, it's the lack of Pistons and Crestons etc that keep me from attending concerts.
I'm from The Netherlands where we've always had subsidised orchestras. In the 50s we had around 14 in a country of 6 million & now we've around 8 for 17 million. Is it really so an orchestra player in the US can get a salary of 100.000 dollars................ I faint, for that money you get 3 great desk violinists over here. Only the players of our Concertgebouw Orchestra get 10% more. A superb seat? Max 50 Euro's. Somethin wrong over the Atlantic?
A lot, where do I start?...
Quote from: M. Yaskovsky on Sunday 06 October 2013, 20:22
Is it really so an orchestra player in the US can get a salary of 100.000 dollars.
Actually, that's low for some orchestras. In many (New York, Chicago, San Franscisco) the rank-and-file member makes upwards of $125,000. Principals make well over that; $150,000 to $175000 is not unheard of. I know one bassoon player of a major orchestra who makes well over $250,000 from the regular orchestra job and then two summer festivals. But that's nothing to what we pay conductors. Even the worst of the worse can easily make over $300,000. Most of them are hardly worth it. Players argue that they worked hard for it (they did), they have expensive instruments (they do) and that orchestras will bid against each other to get them (sometimes). No question, hearing a great orchestra play is an awesome experience. Bands like Clevenland, London Symphony, Concertgebouw, Berlin play so well that the sound is just magical. However, lesser groups, which often appear on labels like Naxos, CPO, BIS and others play nearly as well and most listeners would be hard pressed to hear a difference. And yes, some of the big-name conductors do make a difference. But I have to say, in the last year, there are many 2nd rate orchestras and 2nd rate conductors who have thrilled me in concert and make me question why we all salivate over the big orchestras and over-paid conductors. Gotta quit. Blood pressure rising!
Quote from: erato on Sunday 06 October 2013, 19:39
Well, it's the lack of Pistons and Crestons etc that keep me from attending concerts.
It's the plethora of Stockhausens, Boulezes, etc. that keep me away. And I too would go for concerts featuring good, tonal 20th/21stC music. But it's the restricted 19thC repertoire that's the real scandal.
Well, I keep thinking the general explanation (for trends) in concert attendance has to be found elsewhere, since I'm under the impression- which may be very inaccurate - that the trends have been generally downward on both sides of the Atlantic, but programming of modernist 20th/21st century music has been a lot less since 1970 or so? (I think) in the USA here - by the major orchestras at least. (Some Boulez, e.g., - 16 concerts in the 12 or so months - mentioned in Bachtrack.com, but only a very little in the US, and most of that- all but one concert, one dedicated to Boulez and his influence, in NYC in early 2014- are of the orchestration of his early Notations.) The 6 concerts they list with music by Stockhausen are all in Europe. In my experience, a premiere in the US is more likely to be of music by Mackey (eclectic post-modern - cards on the table, he was the teacher of my class in theory through performance and composition back in '87) or Harbison, e.g., than of anyone in the US working in a Darmstadt sort of vein- or Lindberg-ish, for that matter- if there are that many people here who are, now...
(Though works by Irving Fine -are- listed in the next year or so (chamber orchestra and string trio works) so I'm not -quite- right.) Hrm. I also see something I should maybe add to the other thread, unless Foulds is no longer within our bounds of discussion- maybe he isn't, as he was definitely an exploratory composer... (which always leads me to the question "what really makes Liszt a Romantic" but that is not a question with a brief answer. Not a brief one, merely an important one.)
Quote from: Alan Howe on Monday 07 October 2013, 07:58
Quote from: erato on Sunday 06 October 2013, 19:39
Well, it's the lack of Pistons and Crestons etc that keep me from attending concerts.
It's the plethora of Stockhausens, Boulezes, etc. that keep me away. And I too would go for concerts featuring good, tonal 20th/21stC music. But it's the restricted 19thC repertoire that's the real scandal.
I have never noticed any work by either Stockhausen, Boulez, Piston or Creston on concert programmes in the 40 years I have gone to concerts in Norway, not even a Vaughan-Williams symphony (not that I research advertised concerts in great detail, but still....)! I would have welcomed any of them for yet another rerun of the old faithful (not that I'm not a fan of Brahms and Beethoven).
You need to come to the UK. Plenty of Boulez, etc. here; no Creston or Piston, of course.
more of a fan of some of the in-between modernists- who actually have gotten some play, more play perhaps, even American ones, in England and Europe than in their own country... (and recordings, too, like what I gather is a fine recording of Sessions' 2nd piano sonata on Virgin Classics)...
Have you heard that story of the Piston symphony that was recorded in Russia (now available on the Citadel label- Gauk conducting) during the USSR years?... erm. Anyway. Offtopic for this group but ... if the background story is true (the conductor left the score and parts behind when he went back to the USA, the musicians found it and decided- let's play this...) and it wasn't actually just a case of "you -will- play this piece!"... I'd love the first story to be true, unlikely though it is. I think all composers would love to have musicians react to a piece of theirs with that kind of enthusiasm, somehow- I don't know...
How much was Vanska being paid? Anyone know?
Not sure, but one blog suggested around a million. Also, the average musician was making aound $129,000 prior to the unpleasantness. And the original stories coming out of Minneapolis was the initial offer to them was $89,000!
Here's a quote from the Minnesota Orchestra's own website:
"Our lowest-paid musicians last season received $137,000 in salary/benefits; the highest earned $233,900 (not including the concertmaster position). "
So if you include benefits, the $129K figure is way low. Here's a quote from the NY Times:
"Management's current proposal for a three-year contract calls for an annual average salary of $104,500, compared to $135,000 in the expired contract. Michael Henson, the orchestra's president and chief executive, has said he would reduce his compensation package in the same proportion. How generous of Mr. Henson.......
Vanska's salary seems to be a secret. Which doesn't surprise me inthe least.
Oh, at least 30 musicians have already left.
Jerry
I Agree. Just look at what the American Symphony Orchestra (ASO) has been accomplishing especially under Botstein. It's too bad they do not record (or play) as much, but it's gratifying to see them tackle non-repertoire works esp. of Soviet composers (Popov, Myaskovsky, et al).
Just returned from holiday and seen this thread.
Our local orchestra (The Northern Sinfonia) seem to follow the trend of mixing standard popular repertoire (e.g. Brahms, Mozart or Beethoven) with more modern stuff. As a traditional music lover of romantic music (e.g. melody and harmony, as Mark put it), I'm reluctant to shell out good money for a concert on the off-chance I might enjoy something modern. Life's too short to listen to music you don't enjoy.
via classic FM or other sources, sometimes I come across a nice melodic piece by a modern composer but that doesn't seem to be their norm - I then try a CD of their stuff and most of it is 'throw away' material as far as I'm concerned. Given the price of concert tickets, I don't wish to waste my limited funds.
If orchestral players were less 'prima donna' about how much they think they should earn and took their chances like pop singers (i.e. the market decides what it wants and then their pay is according), maybe current anomalies would sort themselves out. Given the relative minority interest in classical music, players should maybe play for the love of the music at a modest salary and do better if they/their music can, like most walks of life.
I suspect most authors, artists and other'arts' people do not enjoy lavish lifestyles but live for their art and make money where they can. Sometimes, they get lucky (particularly modern so-called art) but that is the lucky few - the rest soldier on for their love of their art (except here in UK where we use taxpayer funds for what many think is modern rubbish).
In England, our Royal Opera House (building and artists) for example are world class but at a very substantial subsidy from tax-payer funds but most ordinary folk cannot dream of affording the prices to go there, even if they liked the repertoire. Without the subsidy, what would happen, I wonder? This is the same dilemma noted before for the Minnesota et al.
A subsidised nursery for emerging talent is fine (e.g. our National Youth or Childrens Orchestras) but after that I believe the big bad world should take over and if orchestras and their management price themselves out of the market, so be it. I agree totally that 2nd tier orchestras, except for those with the finest ears, give most of us nearly as much pleasure at a much more affordable price.
Our 'unsung' romantic composers (e.g. Raff, Ries, Reinecke, to name but three and apologies to Alan and Mark if they don't now consider them 'unsung') virtually never wrote anything bad to our ears - just good or very good, so we would happily pay to listen to one of their unknown works but we never get the chance (I won't re-open that topic!)
Whilst I miss the buzz of a live concert, I'd rather spend my money on Hyperion, CPO etc than on a concert I don't fancy. Are we witnessing the slow decline of live classical music and the rise of the recording studio session instead? Perhaps they could be video'd and edited as part of the recording and all end up watching that via Youtube or something instead??
Sorry it's been a long post - I'll shut up now.
Cheers
Richard
QuoteIn England, our Royal Opera House (building and artists) for example are world class but ... most ordinary folk cannot dream of affording the prices to go there,
I just want to pick up on this point of Richard's. People moan on (with all due apologies to Richard, who isn't moaning) about the price of concert tickets and even more so about the price, well into the £100s, of opera tickets at places like the Royal Opera House. Take a look at the cost of going to a mediocre, mass market West End play or musical - generally more than any concert you'd attend in London, never mind the provinces. Even better, take a look at what "ordinary people" people in their tens of thousands are very willing to pay to see the likes of Beyoncé and Adele - the prices for their stadium shows, were you are probably watching the whole thing on a huge screen, go way up into the high £100s, making Covent Garden look like a bargain evening out. The high relative expense of the serious performing arts is a total myth, often propagated by people who want to make our sort of music appear elitist. The performing arts are just a market place, like anything else, and people will pay what the entertainment is worth to them. Society determines that Wagner is only worth £150, whereas Beyoncé can command £350 and more.
I remember reading a similar point in one of Alex Ross' columns awhile back and being very surprised myself; I guess I'd been just as taken in, yes. (Though the one Promenade concert I've ever gone to was still one of the cheaper orchestral ones I remember, I think- in cost, not in quality ;) - or maybe in potential cost; a (late) friend got the tickets, I think I was just looking at the list of possible prices... erm- anyway.)
Tickets can be purchased an hour before the performance for a lot less money. There are discounts given to seniors and many packages available to reduce the cost.
I still think the answer lies in shortening the season which means fewer concerts. The place where they perform could further reduce the cost. The US is going through some hard times as well as other countries and the money spent on tickets could easily go to pay down credit cards.
Tom
Not all concerts are expensive. Where I live, we have several orchestras with ticket prices in the $15 - $30 range (Sorry, I don't know exactly what the British equivalent would be). The large, professional orchestra in town charges $25 - $125 per concert. Here's the problem: do you want to pay money to hear a decent, not great, semi-professional group struggle with Brahms 1st, or spend more money hearing a professional group do the same symphony? Frankly, given the cost of tickets, the hassle of driving/parking, the rude behavior of audiences these days, I'd rather save my money and stay home and listen to Klemperer do Brahms 1. I know that there's nothing like a live concert - that is if everything goes well. But I also know that too many times I have spent a good amount of money on a concert that wasn't worth it, all things considered. I play in several of these semi-pro groups, and I ask myself: if I weren't playing in this concert, would I go to it as an audience member? Rarely have I said yes.
Then there's this: last year, American conservatories and universities churned out some 30,000 (!!!!) music performance majors. Why? When a bassoon position opens in a 2nd tier orchestra there are some 400-600 applicants. Why is this? Why are we producing so many performers for so few positions?
What I would love to see happen is this: the major orchestras, like Berlin, Vienna, New York, London, etc, broadcast their concerts on a pay-for-play basis like the Met is doing with operas. The BBC broadcasts the Proms, but why not put them on commercial cable tv and offer it to those of us who would like to tune in and see the video? Of course, the forgotten composers won't benefit much.
@Mark. Well said, and I am happy to see you crossed the 3000 mark as pithy and ardent as ever. We in Wisconsin are extremely fortunate to have better than decent orchestras and better than decent conductors that can be seen and heard for around £10 -- or even less if you're superannuated like myself. The content of the programs is far less inclusive of unsungs than I would prefer, but that would be true anywhere, and last spring we heard a superb Rachmaninoff Bells.
Pontification time. Again.
From where I sit, it appears that orchestras today in general program the same way they did 55 years ago when I first starting buying subscription concert season tickets. Most of them don't seem to make much effort at creative marketing. You list the programs and hope folks buy tickets. As a buyer you look at the schedule and you see von Sauer's 2nd Piano Concerto on February 3rd and you haven't a clue who he was and you might reasonably assume that this is another of the maestro's favorite modern composers. And it will likely be ten degrees below zero F. and who wants to drive 150 mile round trip in the middle of the night to hear THAT??
Bernstein had the right idea. The Young People's Concerts, for example, told you that you would be hearing accessible works, with interesting stories (a la Jeffrey Siegel.....). More than once I suggested to the Minnesota that they do a Romantic Piano Concerto series or Romantic Symphony series. Or both. And do one, say, once a month during the season. Then when John Q. Ticketbuyer sees the program list, he KNOWS that the von Sauer is a piece that will be pleasant to the ear. Of course that never happened.
Maybe it wouldn't have helped. But wouldn't it have been worth a try?
Jerry
I probably should know you as we reside in the same state but I don't. As you know yesterdays game between the Vikings and Panthers was a sellout. The NFL has learned about marketing while our symphony has certainly not. The whole situation saddens me as much as you.
Tom
Quote from: Alan Howe on Monday 07 October 2013, 07:58
Quote from: erato on Sunday 06 October 2013, 19:39
Well, it's the lack of Pistons and Crestons etc that keep me from attending concerts.
It's the plethora of Stockhausens, Boulezes, etc. that keep me away. And I too would go for concerts featuring good, tonal 20th/21stC music. But it's the restricted 19thC repertoire that's the real scandal.
Yes, my feelings too.
The Minneapolis/Vanska story was noted during our morning classical programme here in Australia, and so too was the very dramatic fall in the number of orchestras in Germany (sorry I don't have the details to hand - but the figures were staggering).
I can't speak directly to the U.S. situation, but I can't believe that it's all down to poor attendances at live concerts. Isn't it also due to globalization of the music industry, the proliferation of small CD companies, and the increased prominence of what were previously domestic orchestras? Many less well-known orchestras are now just as likely as the big named orchestras to win recording contracts with the major multinational companies. Many U.S. orchestras seem to have suffered from an inability to compete in such a frenzied marketplace. CBS Masterworks seems to have been their main source of recording contracts, then Sony/BMG Masterworks, latterly Sony Masterworks. A search for "Sony Masterworks" Amazon suggests that they have taken a crossover/pop-classics philosophy, sitting alongside their archival classical recordings, rather than using the established U.S. orchestras to make new recordings. Even less are they interested in the vast, neglected U.S. repertoire. The main outlet nowadays, I suppose, is the Naxos American series, but even there the orchestras are often not the old top-drawer U.S. ones. A quick look via Amazon shows they've recently used the ElginSO, the RSNO, the BBCConOrch, the Ulster Orch, the RTE Orch, a couple of Canadian orchestras, and the Detroit SO. And the U.S. orchestras can hardly be expected to compete with the burgeoning list of brilliant European and ex-Soviet bloc orchestras which now appear not only on Naxos but also on Chandos, CPO, Sterling, Brilliant Classics, etc., etc..
In short, the market is highly competitive, global, and unmoved by reputations. It is, I'm sure, only one factor among, but it is no surprise that good U.S. orchestras are struggling.
The Buffalo seems to be a shining star of late. The two Tyberg symphonies come to mind.
Tom
Yes, if only the others had someone like JoAnn Falletta! She was surely an inspired choice (http://www.joannfalletta.com/biography.html (http://www.joannfalletta.com/biography.html))