“About 80 per cent go for the programme, about 10 per cent for the artists, and 10 per cent for other reasons. So there is never any justification on pure economic grounds to pay £12,000 for a soloist rather than £4,000, because we would never see it back at the box office.”Simon Crookall, chief executive of the Royal National Scottish Orchestra, agrees. “It can be galling when you hear of these high fees, particularly when it means that the orchestra can then only afford one rehearsal before the concert,” says one leading flautist, who asked not to be named. There is even some doubt about whether the fees can be justified in terms of extra bums on seats.”All our audience research shows that people are attracted to our concerts overwhelmingly by the programme,” says Stephen Maddock, chief executive of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. For soloists, fees can be even higher, with some sopranos charging standard fees of £25,000 to £30,000 for a concert. The very big names can charge many times more.In a business known for chronic underfunding and precarious financing, there are question marks over the sustainability of such high fees. Finding the cash to pay these fees can lead hard-pressed orchestras to cut corners elsewhere.

“The average concert- goer has no conception of how many conducting performances are salvaged by the orchestra,” she says. Fee levels are cloaked in secrecy, with both artists and orchestras loath to reveal actual numbers. As a rough guide, the average fee for a conductor is around £3,000 per concert, with a handful of top conductors able to charge £10,000 and upwards. “I don’t have a problem with the money earned by the very, very good people, such as Murray Perahia or Daniel Barenboim, but I do have a problem with the very little we earn.” And when the conductor isn’t very, very good?”The pay gap can create resentment, especially if the conductor gets utterly lost and we have to bail him out,” says the sax and clarinet player Shaun Thompson McVeigh agrees. It’s an observation that will strike a chord with many in the orchestral rank and file, who may take home less than £100 for a concert while the soloist or conductor may bank 10 times that amount. Understandably, the disparity can sour relations between an orchestra and those who stand at the front of the stage.
The cellist Alice McVeigh, author of All Risks Musical: An Irreverent Guide to the Music Profession (Pocket Press), says that conductors are loathed because they earn too much: “A typically eminent conductor earns, per concert, about a quarter as much as the typical full-time player earns all year.” Given that most freelance orchestral contractors can expect as little as £75 per concert, the fees lavished on top conductors and soloists can rankle.”The fees for soloists appear to have gone up, and fees for orchestral musicians appear to have gone right down to almost subsistence level,” says one leading clarinet player.

Then when Michael went to court and won, the evil Belgian had appealed. And so it went on.While we were there the Belgian placed a life-size bust of King Leopold II, the man who raped the Congo, on his terrace to glare down on my friend and his family. One day the Belgian carefully broke eggs and put flour on the statue and called the police, claiming Michael had done it. My friend says even the police viewed him with suspicion, right until the moment he pointed out no one can throw an egg 15 yards so that it lands with an unbroken yoke.It was a joke, but a sinister one. The posters were having an effect and now people in the village were saying no smoke without fire The appeals were expensive and went on for ages.