Symphony's Cost

Symphony concerts do not pay. According to Clarence H. Mackay, they cannot pay.

Mr. Mackay is President of the Postal Telegraph-Cable Co. As Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Philharmonic Society of New York, he issued a report which elaborated the unlovely fact that where there is symphony there must also be deficit.

Even with full attendance at all concerts, a symphony orchestra in any city of the U. S. would play at a large deficit. Such deficits are increasing. It is true that in recent years attendance at concerts has been greater than formerly, but costs of production have increased in far greater proportion.

The costs consist largely of salary to musicians. The new union schedule has added $22,248 to the Philharmonic payroll. The scale is a complicated affair with different rates for concert, opera and ordinary theatres, with different rates also for in-town and out-of-town playing, with heavy charges for overtime in the way of rehearsals.

Never have higher standards of symphonic performance been required. They are achieved only by much rehearsing. Especially do new works, the sign of life and progress in an orchestra, require rehearsals. A symphony orchestra player will earn over $100 a week, which, for a band of 100 men, constitutes a sizable outlay.

Also, there are conductors. Two years ago the salary of Josef Stransky, then Philharmonic conductor, was raised from $22,000 to $30,000 a year.

Meanwhile, the prices of concert seats have remained stationary. It is believed, probably quite correctly, that symphony concert box office rates reached the high limit long ago, that any increase would cause a disproportionate falling off in attendance. Occupants of orchestra and box chairs at the Metropolitan or Chicago Opera Company are moneyed people. But concert halls are filled with comparatively poor folk, and simple esthetics do not attract the wealthy strongly enough to fill high-priced stalls.

The inference follows that symphony orchestras must be supported by wealthy individuals who are willing to lay out large sums in the interest of music and in the interest of their own prestige as music patrons. It may be mentioned, as a rather fine symptom, that prestige as a music patron counts in America.