Why are things not that great for them? Some of these answers can be found in Donald Peck's new book, The Right Place at The Right Time, his memoir of over 40 years as principal flutist with the Chicago Symphony. Another even more succinct description is offered in a "powerful paper" written by Milwaukee Symphony principal violist Robert Levine and his father, Seymour, a research professor (Emeritus, Stanford University) in the aspects of biological and psychological stress. The Levine's pretty much lay the blame for this "dual view" directly on the current orchestral structure and the myth of the omnipotent maestro. But the Levine's state the situation much better than I and I must quote their study at length:
Questions from musicians to conductors must be respectfully phrased and, ideally, prefaced with the honorific "Maestro." (This title may be dropped if the conductor is sufficiently young or doesn't speak with an accent.) Such questions must not explicitly challenge the conductor's interpretation of the music or conducting and rehearsal technique in any way.
This arrangement makes matters awkward for the orchestral musician who desires to improve the quality of the orchestral product. The musician must not challenge the conductor's tempi or interpretation; he or she cannot even suggest that there might be a pitch or ensemble problem, much less how the conductor might fix it. Questions are therefore limited to issues of whether the parts agree with the score or how the conductor would like a certain passage bowed. Even the latter has risks, however, as it implies that the conductor didn't see how it was bowed the first time; certainly no self-respecting omniscient being could have missed something as elementary as whether a passage started up-bow or down-bow.
In fact, the myth makes virtually all communication from musician to conductor impossible. (In one major American orchestra, musicians are discouraged from addressing the music director until he addresses them first. Matters are arranged so that the music director never encounters musicians except on the podium or in private meetings which he calls.) This is not to say such communications don't happen, of course, but the farther they venture from simple inquiry, the more uncomfortable they are likely to make orchestra members and the more angry the conductor. Challenging the conductor's omniscience is, quite literally, taboo.
Musicians in a professional orchestra of any significance know quite a bit about music and about what they're doing. So do many conductors, of course; but generally, individual conductors do not know more than the orchestra in front of them knows collectively. In fact, about certain issues, such as the mechanics of string playing, conductors usually know quite a bit less. Most orchestra musicians would agree that many conductors deal ineptly with technical issues such as pitch and ensemble, and that many conductors do not even recognize such problems when they occur, much less address them. Most orchestra musicians, after all, have extensive chamber music experience, in which pitch and ensemble are prominent on the work agenda.
This is actually the fundamental structure of the orchestral workplace. During rehearsals or concerts, musicians experience a total lack of control over their environment. They do not control when the music starts, when the music ends, or how the music goes. They don't even have the authority to leave the stage to attend to personal needs. They are, in essence, rats in a maze, at the whim of the god with the baton.
Much of what is inexplicable to observers of professional orchestras can be explained by stress caused by chronic lack of control and musicians' attempts to deal with it. Musicians' first line of defense is the classic tactic of avoidance. It is no accident that every professional orchestra of any consequence is unionized and that the resulting collective bargaining agreements under which orchestras labor spell out in
exquisite detail the limits of a conductor's authority over the musicians. Such agreements attempt to limit the amount of time musicians are exposed to a situation over which they have no control, as well as expressions of musicians' need to control at least something about the workplace.
There is another, more subtle effect of this chronic lack of control on orchestra musicians: infantilization. Forced to play the roles of children, musicians can behave childishly. Musicians who, when not at work, are perfectly responsible adults, can regress to the level of five-year olds at work, especially when the conductor is even less like the mythic omniscient father figure than is the norm for conductors. Moreover, these musicians tend to view their world, much as a child might, as a mysterious and threatening place. The paranoia that some orchestra musicians exhibit towards managers and conductors, and even towards those of their colleagues who serve on workplace committees, is a consequence of this world view. Yet the subjects of this generalized paranoia are not some anonymous "they" off at corporate headquarters; they are people who, on a daily basis, stand in front of these musicians, answer their questions, and find the money to pay them.
I cannot help but wonder how many musicians in our own communities feel that they have been treated in this manner. In my own rehearsals, if something goes seriously awry, I immediately ponder whether or not I effectively communicated (silently, with baton or gesture) to the ensemble. If it is an issue that I have addressed repeatedly I have to stop the rehearsal and reiterate the information. Sometimes (as I did in a rehearsal session last evening), I will ask the ensemble to "go back to letter "X" for me," because I need to reinforce something that I had just accomplished with the group or possibly communicate better to the group. I did discover last evening that what I felt was a major phrasing concern was corrected much better through my own gesture rather than speaking about it and then just plainly beating time.
I suppose this study raises some of the reasons that--to this day--I attempt to continue my musical education in some way or another. It is the reason that I "learned" the cello at the age of 40-something: I needed to be able to "tune into" (pardon the pun) the idiosyncrasies of a string instrument. This study--brief as it was--made me a better conductor and a much better communicator on and off the podium (and yes, I almost always now bow all of my parts, even to the point of "correcting" some that one of my previous teachers had completed).
In a large metropolitan area, it remains somewhat understandable why musicians of the highest caliber continue to tolerate such working conditions: David Kim, concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra, earned more than $400,000 in 2009, the most recent year for which public financial records are available. Lest we scorn such a high salary, remember than Mr. Kim was there week-in and week-out leading his outstanding section, while principal conductor Charles Duthoit made a cool $1.1 million and change as a very part-time guest (at best). An orchestral position in a major orchestra can establish a reasonable high quality of life (Mr. Kim's salary figure is quite high compared to the "norm"), but it is difficult that a back section player in the East Podunk Metropolitan Philharmonic plays for the money that might barely pay for strings, rosin, and an after-concert beer or two.
So why do the Podunk players continue to put up with such working conditions? Simple. They have a strong desire to play--a very high level of internal motivation--and the EP Metro Phil is the only game in town.
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