Meeting of the Musicians of the Metropolis

“Wonder what’s up with the musicians? A call has been issued for a great mass meeting of the musicians of New York and vicinity, to come off on May 6, at the Metropolitan Rooms, Hester street. Bet a hip they’re going to strike for higher wages. They have to blow, and scrape, and finger as hard as ever, for the same money they used to get, while provisions and peppermint have gone up wonderfully.”

“The Musicians of the Metropolis (orchestral players) had their promised meeting on Wednesday last, and appointed a committee to inquire into the enormity of their wrongs and report on a remedy. The report need not be voluminous; three words, ‘raise the prices,’ will say all that it need say. Musicians are so scarce that they can afford to take the matter into their own hands, and dictate despotic terms to penurious managers, and grasping ball conductors. Nor is the scarcity confined to New-York. It prevails everywhere—even in Europe. With regard to some instruments, indeed it amounts to an absolute dearth; violoncelloes, oboes and bassoons are at a premium here and everywhere, and are in consequence complete masters of the situation. To them we suggest the propriety of a discriminating tariff in which they shall bag all the profit. Why should a bassoonist, who per se is almost as rare an Aztec, receive the same stipend as a miserable second desk fiddler, who can be picked up at every street corner; and what propriety or poetic justice is there in placing the bleating sentimentalist of the violoncello on the same level with the vulgar atlethe [sic] who beats the drum? These things ought to be arranged. The scarce instruments and the leading ones of all sorts should certainly receive more than the second instruments, which require inferior technical ability in handling. At present they get the same. As to the general question of raising prices, it must, we think, be admitted, that musicians, as a rule, are greatly underpaid—especially at the theatres. This fact, indeed, accounts for their scarcity. It is no longer worth while [sic] to make a business of orchestral playing, when a man, by pursuing the healthy avocation of a bricklayer, can get $[illeg.] per week.”