SWEATED MUSICIANS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3035, 4 November 1908, Page 4

SWEATED MUSICIANS.

The Germans have such a reputation as a musical nation that it comes as rather a shock to find that German

orchestral players are sweated to a deplorable extent. An eminent au- 1 thority has calculated that the organ-grinders of London make from three and sixpence to a pound day. But the average income of the orchestral player in Germany is said to be only three ind sixpence a day, and a pound a day is salary to which he cannot aspire. In most of the smaller cities such musicians have to play the most difficult music well, on from £4 to £5 a month. It came out at a trial in Munich, recently, that members of the Kaim orchestra, one of the most famous in the country, got a little over £6 a month, and were so steadily engaged that they could not earn a penny by teaching. The conditions of their contract as to illness, etc., were pronounced by the Press to be inhuman. It is said that Lhere are about 50,000 orchestral players in Germany. They are paid so little during their nine months' season that they cannot save, so they have to scramble for a place in a hotel or summer resort band. Salaries for this work range from £5 to £8 a month.