# What's music worth?



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I see that a Gauguin pointing has just sold for about $300 million. Wow! What piece of music can match that? Original manuscript, sole rights, whatever. Why is a painting worth more than Beethoven's 9th? Speculations welcome!

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-31183733


----------



## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

_"Music Worth"_ was the brainchild of a very distant relative of F. W. Woolworth. It was in concept, a huge no-frills discount store for any and all CDs. Unfortunately, this distant twig of a Woolworth scion hadn't one shred of business sense, like even looking around to see what other business were doing or how well they were doing. He had no idea that brick and mortar record stores were folding left, right and center as he thunk up this brilliant bulk near to wholesale pricing type of store.

It got as far as paying to copyright the store name and a partially sketched number of proposals for the graphics of the concept store's commercial logo, but it remains a concept only which never got off the ground.

If you did not know the OP could refer to this little known aborted business attempt of that very distant relative of F. W. Woolworth, then the Q in the OP could be most rightly answered:
"Whatever the market will bear."


----------



## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

I feel music has been devalued... after selling that Jennifer Lopez CD off yesterday for a dime, I feel bad about how little music is worth in our society today.


----------



## Dustin (Mar 30, 2012)

I have no idea what piece of music could match that gigantic amount but I found online that the scherzo movement of Beethoven's Op 127 string quartet auctioned for 2 million. Seems like a hell of a bargain to me. Of course I would need to acquire 40 or 50 million plus before considering it, but 2 million to acquire the paper on which Beethoven himself wrote down one of his greater works? I'd be over the moon to have something like that.


----------



## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Why reduce great music to monetary worth? It's value is intrinsic.


----------



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

The only recent example I've seen, from 2005:

"A working manuscript of Ludwig van Beethoven's "Grosse Fuge" sold for $1.72 million to an anonymous buyer, Sotheby's auctioneers said.

Sotheby's described the manuscript, discovered in a Pennsylvania seminary library, as "an astounding and important discovery" and possibly the most substantial manuscript of a Beethoven work to come up for sale in more than a century."

This was for the manuscript of the Op. 134 four-hand piano version.


----------



## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

albertfallickwang said:


> I feel music has been devalued... after selling that Jennifer Lopez CD off yesterday for a dime, I feel bad about how little music is worth in our society today.


Dude, it's a Jennifer Lopez CD, like, the opposite of rare, vintage, anything that might raise its value. Don't spend that 10 cents all in one place, now


----------



## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

KenOC said:


> The only recent example I've seen, from 2005:
> 
> "A working manuscript of Ludwig van Beethoven's "Grosse Fuge" sold for $1.72 million to an anonymous buyer, Sotheby's auctioneers said.
> 
> ...


I've seen some articles about that. I'm frankly surprised that that manuscript didn't go to a research library (unless it has since been transmitted to one). It's the kind of thing that musicologists should be able to get access to. Alex Ross writes about his fascination with the manuscript during the half-hour that Sotheby's gave him to look at it:

http://www.therestisnoise.com/2006/01/beethovens_gros.html

More people should have that chance.

*p.s.* I just read the Guardian article. Curious, the amount of money being spent on art by the nation of Qatar.


----------



## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

KenOC said:


> The only recent example I've seen, from 2005:
> 
> "A working manuscript of Ludwig van Beethoven's "Grosse Fuge" sold for $1.72 million to an anonymous buyer, Sotheby's auctioneers said.
> 
> ...


That is not music per se, it is the chart, the score. With the provenance, the fact it is a rare and hitherto unknown sketch, that anything loose of Beethoven's not in some museum or private collection is up for grabs for... wait for it, "Whatever the market will bear."

Sheesh, why didn't you just say so, "What is a rare recently discovered Beethoven working draft of blahdeblah worth?"

Historic artifact though, a musician and a score at the center of it, but not music per se... very surprised you did not bother to make that little distinction.

ADD:
P.s. I hope no taxpayer's monies were spent on this manuscript. We have Beethoven's quartet movement in its final version, as the composer wished to present it. Someone just paid 1.75 million dollars for Beethoven's dustbin garbage!


----------



## GhenghisKhan (Dec 25, 2014)

Because it is easily replicable.

Copy paste is only one click away.


----------



## Guest (Feb 7, 2015)

PetrB said:


> Dude, it's a Jennifer Lopez CD, like, the opposite of rare, vintage, anything that might raise its value. Don't spend that 10 cents all in one place, now


10 cents for a Lopez?? My, the market has improved then.


----------



## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

*Post deleted, since it wasn't music-related*



*p.s.* 

I am continuing to learn a great deal of useless information about what various items sell for that I'd love to share, but I will restrain myself.


----------



## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Simple. Music can be reproduced in performance and the consumption/enjoyment can be repeated over and over, live or in recording. An oil painting is a one off, a great piece by Sir Joshua Reynolds can theoretically be stored away in private collections that the public will never see again, so its consumption/enjoyment is strictly limited. Even if hung in a public gallery, it is a one off for exhibition and not reproduced at will like music recording. Music is cheap! We are lucky!


----------



## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

KenOC said:


> I see that a Gauguin pointing has just sold for about $300 million. Wow! What piece of music can match that? Original manuscript, sole rights, whatever. Why is a painting worth more than Beethoven's 9th? Speculations welcome!
> 
> http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-31183733


By the way, I think it's an average piece of work. I can easily reproduce it. Gauguin has become a "brand", like Picasso. Their paintings are very often easily reproduced, technically speaking.


----------



## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

ArtMusic said:


> By the way, I think it's an average piece of work. I can easily reproduce it. Gauguin has become a "brand", like Picasso. Their paintings are very often easily reproduced, technically speaking.



View attachment 63312


Thanks, I needed a laugh.


----------



## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Art Rock said:


> Thanks, I needed a laugh.


Thanks for agreeing.


----------



## Figleaf (Jun 10, 2014)

As others have pointed out, with a painting the work of art _is_ the physical object, oil on canvas or whatever. With a musical score, it's more complicated than that- a better comparison would be with the prices of rare books.


----------



## Piwikiwi (Apr 1, 2011)

Figleaf said:


> As others have pointed out, with a painting the work of art _is_ the physical object, oil on canvas or whatever. With a musical score, it's more complicated than that- a better comparison would be with the prices of rare books.


I often wonder how much a guy like John Adams or Thomas Adès get paid for a commission.


----------



## echmain (Jan 18, 2013)

KenOC said:


> I see that a Gauguin pointing has just sold for about $300 million.


It means there's a sucker born every minute. Though, not all of them have $300meg lying around.


----------



## quack (Oct 13, 2011)

echmain said:


> It means there's a sucker born every minute. Though, not all of them have $300meg lying around.


You may not like Gauguin's art and think it bad art but you would be the sucker if you had the money and didn't buy it, considering how good an investment fine art is when it is a know "brand" like Gauguin.


----------



## Figleaf (Jun 10, 2014)

quack said:


> You may not like Gauguin's art and think it bad art but you would be the sucker if you had the money and didn't buy it, considering how good an investment fine art is when it is a know "brand" like Gauguin.


You'd be a sucker if you didn't spend $300,000,000 on something with _no intrinsic value_ and (arguably) little artistic value as well? The art world is driven by fashion, and fashions change, although not at a very fast rate- who knows how trendy Gauguin will be in a generation's time? There are factors outside the art world that apply as well: Max Keiser has argued that the current record prices in the art world are directly caused by central bank money printing, and since this has been the case in more readily observable, less exclusive asset classes (real estate for instance) I don't see why he would be wrong. Surely if you had that kind of money you would be better off focusing on permanent stores of value (even at today's inflated prices) like farmland or gold (but probably not Bitcoin, pace Mr Keiser).

That Gauguin picture: at least the women kept their clothes on. Some of his Tahitian paintings just look like bad soft porn- might as well hang a Pirelli calendar on the gallery wall and have done with it. If I wanted to look at tit$ (which I really don't) I would look in the mirror, and for those wanting to look at said appendages and not possessing them, there are surely more cost effective solutions than Gauguin offers.

Back to music: why don't those of you with three hundred mil to spare (I'm sure you're out there, and are hanging on my every word ) buy the birthplace of your favourite neglected composer or other musician and turn it into a museum and place of pilgrimage consecrated to him/her? Intrinsic and cultural value combined. You're welcome!


----------



## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

99¢ for a movement; $9.99 for a selection of works up to 80 minutes in duration.


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Some of the responses are about the value of manuscripts, not the value of music; music is performance, not score. When I first started to explore classical music on record, I thought of it as a financially accessible high art form. For the cost of a recording you coiuld have something as "great" in its own way as any painting or sculpture.


----------



## Dustin (Mar 30, 2012)

Mandryka said:


> Some of the responses are about the value of manuscripts, not the value of music; music is performance, not score. When I first started to explore classical music on record, I thought of it as a financially accessible high art form. For the cost of a recording you coiuld have something as "great" in its own way as any painting or sculpture.


Ken specified he was talking about manuscripts in the very first post.


----------



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Dustin said:


> Ken specified he was talking about manuscripts in the very first post.


Not really -- I said "manuscript, sole rights, whatever." The intent was to include _any _aspect or manifestation of music.

The might include the $50-100 million annually that it costs to support a major symphony in a large American city -- even though this can't be assigned to any specific work.


----------



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

PetrB said:


> P.s. I hope no taxpayer's monies were spent on this manuscript. We have Beethoven's quartet movement in its final version, as the composer wished to present it. Someone just paid 1.75 million dollars for Beethoven's dustbin garbage!


No taxpayers' money was spent for the Op. 134 manuscript. From Wiki: "It was auctioned by Sotheby's Auction House on 1 December 2005; it was bought for GBP 1.12 million (USD 1.95 million) by a then-unknown purchaser, who has since revealed himself to be Bruce Kovner, a publicity-shy multi-billionaire who donated the manuscript-along with 139 other original and rare pieces of music-to the Juilliard School of Music in February 2006. It has since become available in their online manuscript collection."

I looked the manuscript up once, and it can indeed be browsed through online.


----------



## drpraetorus (Aug 9, 2012)

It seems the world is full of people "who know the price of everything, and the value of nothing" As Oscar Wilde wrote


----------



## senza sordino (Oct 20, 2013)

Stradivari violins, violas and celli now sell for $10's of millions. 

Salaries of conductors is $100's of thousands to millions of dollars

Each production of a Met opera is $10's of millions. 

Comparing an original manuscript to a painting is a bit unfair, because it takes a lot of money to make the manuscript of notes sound like music for an audience.


----------



## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

Visual art market and classical music market are very different in their modus operandi. We cannot adjudicate how a painting is sold to say an orchestra ticket because the audience is different.

A lot of people buy paintings just to invest and they don't understand what they just bought to be honest. Most collectors don't know their art history I believe because they are financial moguls who see a Matisse as a stock bond.


----------



## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

"What is music worth"? (I know you didn't ask that...)

It's worth its weight; in the elevation of the human condition it accomplishes.

Without it, too many of the young folks here would spend _even more_ of their time peering in at themselves - that's pretty valuable right there!


----------



## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Piwikiwi said:


> I often wonder how much a guy like John Adams or Thomas Adès get paid for a commission.


In the U.S., if the composer already has a major reputation and the commission is from a symphony (more and more, to spare their budgets, two symphonic organizations will split the cost of the commission and share the performance rights) about $1000 per minute of duration for a symphonic work. (Of course you have to have a major rep and proven track record to command that rate.)

I told this to an English friend, who composes solely on commission, and he said only 'Wow!" I suppose there are more stipends / subsidies for established European composers, and / or it is just assumed they will work for less and be happy about it.

Since it can take an average of near nine months to start and complete a twenty to thirty minute long large symphonic work, that more or less a full time job, the compensation is still not really enough to live off of, at least not much past a poverty level


----------



## Lillian Nicholson (Dec 27, 2014)

They said when you're in your 4th month of pregnancy, start placing a music player, with classical music playing, on top of your belly. It stimulates the brain of the baby inside you that makes him/her intelligent. I did, and my daughter got As when she started schooling. She has been consistently top 1 overall her batch. Probably it's true!


----------



## Piwikiwi (Apr 1, 2011)

PetrB said:


> In the U.S., if the composer already has a major reputation and the commission is from a symphony (more and more, to spare their budgets, two symphonic organizations will split the cost of the commission and share the performance rights) about $1000 per minute of duration for a symphonic work. (Of course you have to have a major rep and proven track record to command that rate.)
> 
> I told this to an English friend, who composes solely on commission, and he said only 'Wow!" I suppose there are more stipends / subsidies for established European composers, and / or it is just assumed they will work for less and be happy about it.
> 
> Since it can take an average of near nine months to start and complete a twenty to thirty minute long large symphonic work, that more or less a full time job, the compensation is still not really enough to live off of, at least not much past a poverty level


Thank you! I expected it to be at least around 10.000 dollars so I wasn't that far off. That is not a large amount of money for that sort of work.

The only people I know who were (part time) composers arrangers both wrote compositions/arrangements for the Metropool Orchestra, a sort of orchestra/big band chross-over.


----------

