# How classical composer earns money?



## jurianbai (Nov 23, 2008)

Hi guys, always want to know this for curiosity.

In Mozart era there a no CD, no tape, so how exactly they earn money from their music ? I know they publishing their music but again what this mean? should be only musician interested in music partitur and it can't directly enjoy by commoners.

I also know some was sponsored by authority (nobles, churchs, etc) and maybe there was large enough music industry to make their music sold nicely in opera house. but then again how the royalty etc. works in their era.

so, is classical composer a "profesional" enough job just like Michael Jackson today?

any idea ?


----------



## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Aside from publishing, they also earned from commissions for specific pieces same as they do today.

I work in accounting for a university. A couple of years ago I had the honor of processing a check for a piece by a fairly well known composer commissioned by our school of music. 

Let's just say it had quite a few zeros in it and that was the advance. I haven't heard yet if the piece is finished or what became of it.

The other way is through teaching which I think they still do also.


----------



## jhar26 (Jul 6, 2008)

jurianbai said:


> Hi guys, always want to know this for curiosity.
> 
> In Mozart era there a no CD, no tape, so how exactly they earn money from their music ? I know they publishing their music but again what this mean? should be only musician interested in music partitur and it can't directly enjoy by commoners.
> 
> I also know some was sponsored by authority (nobles, churchs, etc) and maybe there was large enough music industry to make their music sold nicely in opera house. but then again how the royalty etc. works in their era.


Yes, but in those days there were more people who played an instrument as a hobby. So there was some money to be made from publishing although not as much as from record sales today. There was no such things as royalties. You just sold your composition to a music publishing company and if it turned out to be a 'best seller' the profits went to the publishing house. Of course - if you were a popular composer publishing companies would pay more money for your work.

Most composers were also performing musicians in those days. Mozart for example organized his own concerts at which he played his piano concertos. The opera house was the place where the real money was though.

But most composers were for the sake of a steady income eager to get a position in the service of nobility or church.


----------



## confuoco (Feb 8, 2008)

jurianbai said:


> In Mozart era there a no CD, no tape, so how exactly they earn money from their music ? I know they publishing their music but again what this mean? should be only musician interested in music partitur and it can't directly enjoy by commoners.


You forgot one important thing - royalties. Composers don't get money only from publishing their works, but also royalties from all sold copies and also royalties from public performances of their works. But I don't know when this system of copyright and royalties was established, but sure it didn't exist in the time of Mozart and Beethoven.


----------



## jurianbai (Nov 23, 2008)

thanks for answering.

then in this case there was a strong relations between music/entertainment industry and composer in the very beginning. 

moving out more, how non musician people s enjoyed the music. i don;t think listen to beethoven symphonies once or two in opera house will make you really remember all the tunes. at that time there is no way to "store" a music and heard from a machine.


----------



## jurianbai (Nov 23, 2008)

I always read most of composers are like in the line between fame and bankrupcy, who is the most financial successful composer in history? by composing only I mean, not because of teaching or other side job?


----------



## PicklePepperPiper (Aug 3, 2010)

From the top of my head, I think Haydn was always really well off, he could keep a job down.

And I might be atrociously wrong because I'm exploring the dusty vestibules of my memory, but I remember reading somewhere that Liszt was very wealthy.

And then you have Hans Zimmer, who in my opinion has been paid far too many times for the same music score.

-PPP


----------



## jhar26 (Jul 6, 2008)

Rossini, Verdi and Puccini did very well financially I think.


----------



## hocket (Feb 21, 2010)

From the middle ages through to the late 18th C European musicians (of the kind we're talking about anyway) were largely dependent upon aristocratic or ecclesiastical patrons -they were servants. Publishing, teaching etc. were largely sidelines that couldn't really provide a steady income. 

This changed in the late 18th-19th C's and the view that composers (and indeed artists in general) should not be in the employ or the mouthpiece of the wealthy or the establishment. Mozart is someone who seems to have struggeld with the changing situation and ideology during his time. He made several (unsuccessful) trips in search of suitable patrons, and of course was notoriously unsatisfied with his patron and pay in Salzburg (and they treated what they viewed as his outrageous attitude accordingly -a kick up the ****).

An interesting exception is the monopolies on publishing music that Queen Elizabeth gave to Tallis and Byrd. Their first publication was commercially disastrous and they had to beg the Queen to give them some estates in order to maintain themselves. However, I understand that Byrd was later relatively lucrative in this field, publishing both his own music and that of others. So while there was presumably some income to be had from publishing your music it seems there was far more to be had by actually having control of the publishing business -but that was at the behest of a Royal patron.

A bit earlier there are surprisingly detailed records of Jacob Obrecht's finances which show that he was never a wealthy man in spite of his fame -but this is probably because he was never able to hold down a position with a major patron for an extended period. OTOH Josquin became quite wealthy through the grants of land and estates that he received from patrons (though he also inherited some property -though it was probably a good deal more modest) and went to some efforts in his will to ensure that the local nobility couldn't take it for themselves upon his death. Josquin even composed a song in order to remind the King of France, rather cheekily, to give him some land that he had promised to him. He also wrote the famous 'El Grillo' in order to tease another patron who was failing to pay his musicians promptly (hence the ciccada needs water in order to keep on singing!). 

In spite of Obrecht's relative poverty Renaissance musicians moved from court to court and cathedral to cathedral throughout Europe showing that their was fierce competition for their services and they could make considerable financial demands -that went for performers as much as composers. The three biggest patrons in that period were the Vatican, the French Royal Court and the Hapsburg court. Josquin worked for both the Pope and the King of France at different times and he also spent a period at Ferrara (as did Obrecht) which was probably the next most prestigious. At certain times Visconti Milan was another key position which Josquin also occupied. 

These patronage structures were complicated by the Reformation but we can see in Bach's applications to serve at Dresden, Brandenburg and his being 3rd choice for Leipzig that the system was very much alive and well and still very competitive.

As for who's the most commercially successful ever? I have no idea. Sorry.


----------



## Fsharpmajor (Dec 14, 2008)

jurianbai said:


> who is the most financial successful composer in history? by composing only I mean, not because of teaching or other side job?


I think it is probably George Gershwin.

Some composers who were also instrumental virtuosos earned substantial amounts from performing--e.g. Liszt and Paganini.


----------



## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

Some composers of Mozart's time enjoyed the patronage of the aristocracy or the church.
Mozart was employed by the archbishop of Salzburg ,whom he detested, to write music for liturgical purposes,such as settings of the Mass etc. 
Haydn was for many years Kapellmeister(music director) for the music-loving Hungarian count Eszterhazy, and lived for many years on his estate, and was employed,literally as a hired servant in livery, to write music for the count, hire musicians for the count's private small orchestra and singers too for opera productions, 
put on productions of opera at the count's private theater where he entertained visiting membersof the aristocracy etc. 
It was steady work,even if Haydn had to live like a servant and always kiss up to the count. 
But he was a feather in the count's hat, and he had to treat him well, or else he would have defected to the courts of other music-loving members of the aristocracy who would have loved to have him as their kapellmeister.
When the count died, and was succeeded by a relative who was not interested in music, he had already become so famous that he was able to move to Vienna and be successful on a freelance basis as a composer.
The last ten years of mozart's life,from 1781 to 91, he had left the odious archbishop's service and tried to make it in Vienna, Europe's capitol of music, as a freelance pianist and composer, putting on concerts of his own music playing his own piano concertos and other music and hiring the musicians and paying them.


----------



## altiste (Jun 11, 2008)

*royalties*



confuoco said:


> But I don't know when this system of copyright and royalties was established, but sure it didn't exist in the time of Mozart and Beethoven.


My understanding is that SACEM in France was the first performing rights organization in the world to get going, and that was around 1850. So that's when the royalty system really came into existence.

I was just reading a little history on the Sacem website, that it all came about when Ernest Bourget, in 1847, demanded payment for the use of his work in a well-known café-concert of the time. He claimed this right in court based on a text from the Revolution.


----------



## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

jurianbai said:


> Hi guys, always want to know this for curiosity.
> 
> In Mozart era there a no CD, no tape, so how exactly they earn money from their music ? I know they publishing their music but again what this mean? should be only musician interested in music partitur and it can't directly enjoy by commoners.
> 
> ...


I think you probably already know.

- Paid employee, where "payment" did not necessarily equate only to cash but may have included housing and sustenance.
- Concert performance, this would include paid commissions and or risky personal ventures
- Published scores without necessrily the benefit of modern day copyright laws
- Teaching music

What about today? Might include social welfare?


----------



## jurianbai (Nov 23, 2008)

I guess hiring an in-house composer in Haydn times is like buying a hi-fi or mp3 player...


----------



## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

jurianbai said:


> I guess hiring an in-house composer in Haydn times is like buying a hi-fi or mp3 player...


That's why evil Dark Lord of Collectors like myself and perhaps you, too, have untold scores of music and musicians amongst our libraries and servants' quarters respectively, ready to perform at our request. We pay them with oxygen only.

Another thing, many composers who gained the patronage of the rulers of their days were granted life pensions. For example, Handel was granted a life pension of 200 pounds sterling in 1723 (when he was only 38 years old, he died in 1759). This was a very decent sum of money almost 300 years ago, and rare amongst musicians/composers. Many of his contemporaries died in poverty/poor.


----------



## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Sibelius also got a life pension from the Finnish government...


----------



## Ravellian (Aug 17, 2009)

Wagner got his butt saved by a wealthy prince who happened to be his biggest fan. If it weren't for that prince we probably never would have heard _Tristan_, _Der Meistersinger, The Ring Cycle, and Parsifal._


----------



## djmomo17 (Aug 12, 2010)

I had a blog post about this I just remembered:

"How much was Beethoven Paid?"


----------



## jurianbai (Nov 23, 2008)

wiki



> Beethoven composed these quartets in the sequence 12, 15, 13, 14, 16, with quartets 15 and 13 being written simultaneously[citation needed]. The first three of the quartets (numbers 12, 13 and 15) were commissioned in 1822 by Prince Nicholas Galitzin, who in a letter dated 9 November 1822 offered to pay Beethoven: "..what you think proper" for the 3 works. In his reply of 25 January 1823, Beethoven stated his price: *50 ducats for each opus*.[1]


any idea how much it is now?

edit: the link in previous post give some details, but different from wikipedia's article on his late quartets.


----------



## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

A key assumption is the underlying rate of price inflation one might assume for assessing how much 50 ducats might be worth today from 1822, which was 190 years ago!

Let's assume for simplicity's sake, just to get an idea of the size of numbers we might be looking at, that inflation was as low as 2% per annum on average per year for the last 190 years, despite episodes of economic recession and growth. So, one unit of whatever measurement would be worth 43 times today, taking 1.02 compound it 190 years.

Then there is the unit of ducat. If I'm not mistaken, then that was a standard imperial gold coin used throughtout Europe until around WWI. One goin coin weighed about 3.5 grammes. The price of gold today is about USD40 to USD45 per gramme, let's say USD40 per gramme.

Putting it altogether, 50 ducats 190 years ago would be (based on the assumptions above) 43 x 3.5 x 40 x 50 ~ *USD300,000*.

Not an absurd amount. If he was alive today, then LvB would be an enormously wealthy individual anyway. Top artists could easily command such fees for a batch of work.


----------



## jurianbai (Nov 23, 2008)

that's good money. Dunno if today classical composer can sell that sum of money for one work, especially a string quartet. USD 300,000 is about to sell 30,000 CDs for record company.


----------



## myaskovsky2002 (Oct 3, 2010)

*some guys*

are saying that you have to be a musician or at least be able to read scores in order to analyze music...Does it mean that musicians compose essentially for musicians? That's new for me! They can't live for sure...and the musicians here have a short life...LOL

Martin


----------



## Nix (Feb 20, 2010)

jurianbai said:


> I always read most of composers are like in the line between fame and bankrupcy, who is the most financial successful composer in history? by composing only I mean, not because of teaching or other side job?


Interesting question. There's a famous story that Gershwin asked Schoenberg, Ravel and Stravinsky for lessons. I wish I could remember it better, but all of them turned him down with some witty retort that he didn't need lessons because he was so wealthy. I can recall that one of them said something like "How much did you make last year? [Gershwin answers with some figure] You should be the one giving me lessons." Stuff like that.

Richard Strauss and Rossini were also notorious for writing music specifically with the intent to make money (which they were good at).

And contrary to popular belief, Mozart was making more in the last year of his life then any other composer before him- he just had a problem with lending money while living luxuriously.


----------



## Nix (Feb 20, 2010)

Oh, someone also mentioned film composing. Honestly, I don't include film composers as classical composers unless they have a significant classical background- like Prokofiev or Copland. Zimmer I'm sure is technically the highest paid composer at the moment. But I'm pretty sure that John Williams is quite possibly the most financially successful composer of all time. It's in his contract that film studios can't reject his scores, his music is played in concert halls just as frequently as the great classical composers, and he must be rolling in royalties with scores like Star Wars, Jaws, E.T., Jurassic Park and Harry Potter.


----------



## myaskovsky2002 (Oct 3, 2010)

*apparently*

Musicians should compose for musicians...because they are the only people who can "analyze" classical music. I'm copying here a nice message I had because I can't read a score...

Martin, for someone who prides himself on being a layperson and not a musician, you certainly seem pretty elitist, or at the very least, remarkably condescending. 

Nice message!

This guy is very friendly, don't you think so?

Martin


----------



## GraemeG (Jun 30, 2009)

I think composers did alright post-Beethoven selling works to publishers. You probably made more from a four-hand piano reduction of a symphony than from the work itself. Pianos were popular, people played at home, with friends. There was no TV, no radio, no cinema. No photocopiers to circumvent paying for sheet music.

Your 'group' entertainment (as opposed to reading a book) was the circus, the theatre, the concert.
GG


----------

