How Changes in Attitudes Served Philadelphia Orchestra

The Philadelphia Orchestra, one of the nation’s Big Five, hits the centennial mark in two years. Its history is a list of firsts and top honors. It was the first to make an electrical recording (in 1925) and the first to play on the soundtrack of a feature film--”The Big Broadcast of 1937”--and this was three years before playing in Walt Disney’s famous “Fantasia.”

So when this venerable institution, which visits the Southland this weekend for two concerts, went on strike for nine weeks in 1996, the musical world shuddered.

Who was next? What did it mean for classical music in the U.S.? Was there anything to be learned from how the strike was settled?

In fact, 1996 turned out to be a year of strikes. Other orchestras that walked out included San Francisco, Atlanta and Oregon. The Cleveland Orchestra averted one only at the last minute.

In contrast, the Los Angeles Philharmonic last went on strike in 1966--which coincidentally was also the year of the Philadelphians’ previous strike, which also lasted nine weeks. The Pacific Symphony, Orange County’s only resident major orchestra and a per-service orchestra rather than a full-time one, has never walked out.

“I don’t think you can generalize about why an orchestra chooses to go on strike,” said Joseph Kluger, president of the Philadelphia Orchestra Assn. since 1989.

“It’s a very, very painful process for all concerned. It’s painful for musicians who lost nine weeks of pay, painful for those of us on the staff whose jobs it is to make their lives easier, and painful for the public who loses out on wonderful music.”

Said Philadelphia music director Wolfgang Sawallisch: “A strike should not be necessary. But it was the decision of the orchestra, and I had to respect that. We lost a few weeks of collaboration. But this is not so important. Now everything is settled. Everybody is happy.”

Added Kluger: “One of the fallacies is the perception that the number of work stoppages in 1996 was greater than at other times in history. We did a study and it showed it is something that happens to a small percentage of the symphony orchestras on a periodic basis, and it’s awful, but I don’t believe the frequency has increased nearly so much as what some people in the media would make it seem.”

The issues were wages and benefits, and especially the musicians’ demands for a “media guarantee” to make up for lost recording and broadcast contracts. Changes have been made. The orchestra now has the second-highest weekly base salary in the nation, and a new committee, including musicians, has been formed to explore making recordings and broadcasts.

“We now have members of the orchestra on virtually every committee,” Kluger said. “This is absolutely new. It sounds like a simple thing, but we never did it before.”

Curiously, the orchestra was not fighting the pressure of declining audiences.

“In the ‘95-96 season, which was the season just prior to the expiration of the contract, we sold 90% of the seats, representing about 60% of the [$30-million annual] budget,” Kluger said. “Most of the orchestras in our peer group are relatively stable too, selling 80%-90% of their seats. The notion of declining audiences for classical music is another one of those myths.”

Still, the strike did have an impact on subscriptions and fund-raising.

“There was a 10% falloff in subscriptions,” Kluger said. “It will take us three or four years to build that back.”

Then, too, the ticket-buying habits of the audience have changed.

“The recession of the 1990s changed the buying habits of the public, and this was true across the country,” Kluger said. “People were less willing to buy subscriptions. Subscribers became much more selective. They were willing to pay $50 a ticket, as long as it had value as they perceived it, which is different for everyone.”

So the Philadelphians saw a dramatic increase in single-ticket sales, as did other orchestras.

“Now we have to make sure every single concert is exciting enough to garner the support of the public,” Kluger said. “Different orchestras make different decisions about what that means.

“Some say, ‘We need to be conservative because that’s what we think the public wants.’ Some say, ‘OK, we have to be really exciting. We have to do something innovative.’ In both cases, you have to know the market, which is not so easy.”

Indeed it’s not.

“In 1996, we decided to do all the Beethoven symphonies, and it was clearly successful box office-wise,” Kluger said. “So the next year, 1997, which was the anniversary of Brahms’ death, we decided we would do all the Brahms symphonies, and it was not nearly so successful.

“On the other hand, we did Messiaen’s ‘Turangalila’ Symphony, with Andrew Davis spending the first half-hour playing excerpts, as a kind of a young people’s concert for adults, and it was very successful. There’s no formula. [But] satisfying critics and satisfying the public are two different things. They’re not mutually exclusive, but you can’t presume that programming that appeals to critics will garner the support of the public and visa versa.”

The Philadelphians’ contract expires in three years. Kluger isn’t worried.

“The symphony orchestra is a healthier institution than most people are describing it to be,” he said. “That is not to say that we do not have problems and challenges, and I’m convinced that those symphony orchestras which adapt themselves to those challenges will be more successful in the next decade or next century than those which merely say they’re dinosaurs. Those are probably going to be organizations that have self-fulfilling prophecies.”

* Wolfgang Sawallisch will conduct the Philadelphia Orchestra in two programs this weekend at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. Friday at 8 p.m., he conducts Barber’s Symphony No. 1, Henri Tomasi’s Trumpet Concerto and Dvorak’s Symphony No. 8. Sunday at 3 p.m., he will lead Hindemith’s Symphonic Metamorphoses, Weber’s Symphony No. 1 and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5. The concerts are sponsored by the Philharmonic Society. $20-$75. (949) 556-2787.