{"id":136,"date":"2006-09-13T17:43:23","date_gmt":"2006-09-13T17:43:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/2006\/09\/13\/mahler-was-underpaid\/"},"modified":"2006-09-13T22:55:54","modified_gmt":"2006-09-13T22:55:54","slug":"mahler-was-underpaid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/2006\/09\/13\/mahler-was-underpaid\/","title":{"rendered":"Mahler was underpaid?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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From Alex Ross<\/a>\u00a0of the New Yorker\u00a0on conductor salaries past and present-<\/a>\u00a0
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\u201cEyebrows have been raised over recent reports<\/a> that James Levine receives a salary of $1.6 from the Boston Symphony and $1.9 million from the Met, and that Lorin Maazel gets $2.6 million from the New York Philharmonic. Excessive or no, salaries on this scale are nothing new. Not long ago Cornell University Press published Gustav Mahler: Letters to His Wife, in Antony Beaumont’s meticulous translation, and I found there a detail that I hadn’t noticed in previous Mahler tomes: in March 1911, even as his health went in fatal decline, GM signed a new contract at the New York Philharmonic for ninety concerts at a fee of $90,000. I ran that through the inflation calculator<\/a> and came up with the figure of $1.8 million in today’s money. Not bad for a man who thought his time had not yet come\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The interesting comparisons would be to see what the Philharmonic salary would have been back then, and to see what other conductors at the time were making.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Better yet- can we find out what the head of Standard Oil or one of the big railway companies was making then?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Even better- What was the Philharmonic\u2019s Executive Director making in 1911?????\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve written before<\/a> about the fact that, compared to the top people in other fields, elite classical musicians seem terribly underpaid. Has this always been the case, even when classical music was a more central part of the culture?\u00a0 By the way, 90 concerts is a lot of concerts. Just at a guess, if Lorin Maazel does 15 weeks a year at the Philharmonic, and does triples every time, that\u2019s still two years, which means Maazel would be making 5.2 million to Mahler\u2019s $1.8 million, or $20k per concert for Mahler compared to $58k\/concert for Maazel. Remember, that\u2019s assuming that Maazel does 90 performances with the Philharmonic over 2 years. Note that those are fees per concert, not per week, and that these are only complete and total guesses, and that I still think Mr. Maazel deserves everything he makes and more. (As a matter of personal\u00a0policy, I don’t believe there are any underpaid decent musicians out there)<\/p>\n

What does Peyton Manning make per game? (Answer- about a million dollars per game in 2003)\u00a0Per touchdown?($551,724\u00a0per touchdown in 2003)\u00a0How about per completed pass? ($42,215 per completion in 2003). And he is one of the most prolific and durable players at his positions- consider other top players who miss 4-8 games a year for similar money… I think announcers should have to announce what a player made every\u00a0time he threw a pass or fumbled or made a tackle. “Nice tackle from Junior Seau coming across the middle. Last year, Junior made $80k per tackle, so he’s feeling great about that.”<\/p>\n

Did you know the Washington Redskins paid 7.4 million dollars per game in salary in 2004 and went only 6 wins 10 losses on the year. That’s 19.7 million dollars per win, by the way, not counting the coaches or administration.<\/p>\n

I doubt many, if any, music directors of top 10 American orchestras would do a concert at the Philharmonic for $20k.<\/p>\n

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UPDATE- Alex Ross\u00a0has followed\u00a0up on my comparison, pointing out-
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“Indeed, classical music is very small potatoes compared to the remainder of the American military-industrial-cultural complex. By the way, the person in charge of the Philharmonic in 1911 was Mary R. Sheldon, the wife of the treasurer of the Republican National Committee.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m guessing (hoping)\u00a0Ms Sheldon was a volunteer. Alex?
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Copyrighted material is reproduced here without profit\u00a0for educational purposes only and will be removed on request.
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c. 2006 Kenneth Woods
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