Orchestra Hall

[woofner]

As long as we're playing the game of pounding economic theory pegs into artistic holes, let's think about the difference between the pre- and early-modern economies in which Beethoven and other composers of the basic repertoire lived and our own, post-war consumer (or early post-consumer) economy. I'm not very versed in the projection backwards of economic theory, but my understanding is that the typical European of the 17th & 18th centuries had next to nothing of what we would consider material wealth. Wikipedia mentions that some economists even deal with this fact by referring to historical purchasing power parities in units called "cereals". Even a relatively penurious composer such as Mozart would have been immensely better off than the average Austrian subject due to his ownership of fine musical instruments and even clothes that could be worn at court. Likely even by Beethoven's old age, the well-being of the average European had increased significantly (I recently read this statistic in Hobsbawn's Age of Revolution, and I believe it was typically at least one order of magnitude if not two, but I could be wrong). I have never read a study of the relative prosperity of composers, but based on my knowledge of their biographies, I don't believe Beethoven was so significantly better off than Mozart, let alone a more prosperous composer such as Bach. But he still had nice things, whereas the typical Austrian peasant would have still had little in terms of material wealth. Assuming the typical MN Orchestra musician makes $100k, this is only twice Minneapolis' mean median wage of $24.19, and comparable or lower than local mean wages for other highly skilled professions.

So what I'm saying is that the relative pay for high art musicians likely has in fact declined over the past few centuries.

[FISHMANPET]

The average standard of living is higher now, so saying relative pay has declined doesn't mean much, because wages on the lower end have risen so dramatically.

[woofner]

Please correct me if my thinking is off here, but since nominal wages overall have risen dramatically, doesn't that make it likely that real wages for professional high art musicians have declined since Beethoven's time? That's kind of where I was going with the relative pay thing.

[MNdible]

I'm not sure that comparing the relative wealth of a 2nd Violin in today's MN Orchestra with a court sponsored 18th Century composer is a terrifically useful exercise.

Now if we actually knew how much an 18th Century 2nd Violin made, then we'd be getting somewhere.

Also, we need to take into consideration the 20th Century phenomenon of the inflation of orchestra size. I'm looking at you, Mahler.

[woofner]

I'm not sure any of this discussion is useful either, but on the last page

While in most industries productivity rises over time, a performance of Beethoven’s Eroica takes exactly the same number of orchestral musicians the same amount of time today as it did two centuries ago. Because the wages of orchestral workers, whose productivity has not increased, have risen over time in line with those of other workers, the relative cost of a performance is far greater today than it was then.

Anyway, from what I understand, until the early 19th century there was little difference in pay between composers and musicians. One of the ways Beethoven was revolutionary was that he was among the first composers who was successful as a free agent, simultaneously using the new-fangled Romantic idea of the individual Genius and the gestating middle or merchant classes to drive up his pay relative to those who played his music.

If anyone has a copy of Peter Hall's Cities in Civilization, we may get a basis for some message board math. My copy is in a box somewhere. On the other hand, I'd like to mention that Mozart's Marriage of Figaro revolves around the contemporaneous controversy of eliminating the droit du seigneur, which allowed a nobleman to claim the wedding night of any serf of his realm. Point being, there's only so much you can economically compare a society that has developed frozen peanut butter & jelly sandwiches to a society with legalized rape.

[Tom H.]

No, here's looking at Mahler.

Don't go dissing my favorite composer, dude. That's life-altering stuff right there.

[MNdible]

I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin'.

[Nick]

This is fun.

[Tom H.]

Maybe it's because I'm a trombonist, but I really have no problem with 'massively and overwhelmingly loud'.

[RailBaronYarr]

Regardless of anything else, can we agree to agree to stop comparing the orchestra and teachers?

Sure, it's not like tons of research hasn't done that exact thing.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol's_cost_disease

[Didier]

The point is that teachers are indispensable to society and musicians are not, and as such teachers are funded by tax dollars and orchestras are funded privately, so it's pointless to suggest that their income changes should be parallel.

There's a huge difference between keeping up with inflation for teacher pay and keeping up with previous market value for classical musicians.

[Viktor Vaughn]

Musicians aren't indispensable to society?!

[Wedgeguy]

Musicians aren't indispensable to society?!

Thanks you!! THey are what make a city a place you want to live in. THey are part of culture that is what makes a difference in a city.

[talindsay]

Musicians aren't indispensable to society?!

Thanks you!! They are what make a city a place you want to live in. They are part of culture that is what makes a difference in a city.

Agreed.

[Didier]

Musicians aren't indispensable to society?!

Thanks you!! THey are what make a city a place you want to live in. THey are part of culture that is what makes a difference in a city.

Nobody is disagreeing with this. The question is whether the precedent of salaries for musicians is too high in today's environment.

[RailBaronYarr]

Whether or not they're viewed as indispensable to society or not is irrelevant. I tried to boil down the idea of the cost disease in terms people who didn't understand it would understand. It applies to both education (in general, not just teacher wages) and orchestras alike. That's all I was trying to do.

[Tom H.]

This talk about cost disease is interesting. General question to someone who knows more about this than me:

Can the cost disease model be used to understand why post-secondary education costs have been rising faster than inflation recently? In other words, if educator salaries are rising faster than their productivity gains should support, does this induce an increase in tuition to compensate?

[RailBaronYarr]

Quick answer: Yes.

Longer answer: other factors are at play (obviously). Most notable is the "Bowen" effect (Baumol being the cost disease effect). Bowen factors state that for things like healthcare and education, virtually any additional amenity or cost can be justified because it increases how well something is done. For higher ed, these costs include things like: advisers, study halls, new dorms, on-campus safety/police, job placement centers, etc. For every $1 in Bowen effects on higher ed cost increases, $2 were attributed to the latter (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm? ... id=2153122)

Longer answer: "Cost" is a relative term. Are we talking the actual cost per student to operate a university? Or are we talking the cost of attendance for students? (for example, the UMN, in inflation-adjusted $ per full-time student only saw a rise in operation cost of 3% between 2002 and 2012). State and federal disinvestment in real (inflation-adjusted) dollars has dropped significantly, and this shortfall in funding has been passed on to students (with the gov't providing more options for low-interest loans to allow the same number of students entry).

Back to Orchestra Hall....

[Wedgeguy]

Thank you for veering us back onto the road before we crash. The road back to Orchestra Hall, was it not????

[Tom H.]

In the Strib today: a hard deadline (September 15) from Osmo Vanska. Looks like, if it's not resolved by then, he's out.

http://www.startribune.com/entertainmen ... 66001.html