Re: GG:Death of Symphonies

[Bruce Petherick <bruceep@ariel.ucs.unimelb.EDU.AU>]

At 14:56 27/09/96 EDT, you wrote:
>CNN (North America) is running a story today about the national strike
>of symphony members.  The average salary is 64,000$ and most strikers
>are asking for a 15% increase in spite of a severe drop in ticket
>sales, and the fact that European musicians will accept U.S. contracts
>of substantially less pay.  The San Diego symphony is one of several

Gee, I hope that Australian musicians don't find out about that salary.  I
think it is at least twice the average for a player in a symphony orchestra
here.


>will only be symphonies in 12 major US cities.  The drop off is
>attributed in part to the massive amounts of recordings which are
>available of the 360 or so symphonic pieces and the fact that the
>concert hall is not an entertaining place to listen to music!
>Was GG right????

To a cartain extent he was.  Orchestras can not survive on their present
form throughout the world.  Some orchestras will turn into purely recording
orchestras,  some will turn into permanent touring orchestras, and some will
die.  We can not ignore the effect of the recording industry on the state of
orchestral music.  Audiences now expect, as is the case in pop music, what
they hear at home on CD.  We can not expect, nor I suspect that we want to,
that our local orchestra will sound like another orchestra on a CD we have
at home. I hope that the audiences will make their intentions clear to the
managers and the players - we need a complete restructuring of the field of
classical music.  I don't want it to die, I just feel that it needs to change.

Bruce Petherick