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RIN:151 The following article was published in the Strad magazine September
2006. |
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REPLY TO THE EDITOR of the STRAD: By Fritz Reuter--also see: (Article Text-RIN152)
BOUGHT AND
SOLD? |
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After a silence of more than a hundred years, it had to be an unexpected outburst of courage which motivated the Strad to publish a most interesting, anonymously authored article in its September, 2006, issue. “Bought and Sold” could be called investigative journalism. In any case, the article forcefully (if less than fully) exposes the underbelly of the violin business. As my parenthetical qualification implies, what found its way into print in September of 2006 only slightly scratches the surface of a scab on that underbelly—the scab, a product of commercial bribery! To start with, the article’s preface opens with an incorrect legal definition. The writer speaks of “commissions [received] from dealers when a student buys an instrument.” An actual commission, however, is a legal, “above the table” payment for professional services rendered. In this situation, everyone knows who gets what out of the transaction. Nothing is hidden. What the article in fact describes are admittedly “under the table” payments by dealers to teachers. The so-called commissions are, in other words, what plain English must term bribes or kickbacks. By comparing two dominant views of this practice—one represented by a Professor at Julliard, the other by a teaching female operative and bribe taker—I want to clarify what they are actually doing and how they see it. |
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At the article’s very outset, the anonymous author seems to be taking the part of the bribe collectors. Thus rings out the loud, self-justifying chorus of almost all teachers: I am “an underpaid, undervalued fiddle teacher.” Many an individual is underpaid and undervalued. But this makes a scam ok? I do not wish to sound harsh, but I can’t help saying: Please, if you can’t hack it in your profession, get a real job! Don’t dishonor what should be a noble calling by playing the kickback game. This brings me to Bribes, a brilliant and provocative book by John T. Noonan, Jr.—once a Federal Judge, now a Professor in the Law School of the University of California at Berkeley. As a leading legal scholar and the United States’ preeminent expert on bribery, he equates bribery and sexual prostitution. Sadly, I have little difficulty in finding a striking parallel in the violin business. I quote from a letter written to me by the well-known late Hans Weisshaar, founder of The American Federation of Violin and Bow Makers: March 21, 1984 Dear Fritz, . . . regarding the payment of commissions, finder’s fees or any other remuneration in money or kind is much easier to settle. If you are in business and want to sell instruments, you will find it very difficult to be successful without doing it. [Note that “it,” the payment of kickbacks, goes on without anyone informing the buyer of this arrangement.] It has become an established and accustomed practice that has become a necessity for survival for many [sellers of stringed instruments]. And regardless of the protestations of many, this practice [of paying teachers up to 50% kickbacks, based on the sales price for a given instrument] will survive and be part of our life, the same as prostitution in all its many forms has been part of our lives since time immemorial. In the raunchy vernacular of red light districts everywhere, the sellers of stringed instruments become pimps—and string teachers the prostitutes themselves. |
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As the case of Mimi Butler of New Jersey demonstrates (Ms. Butler is deeply involved in this racket, and prominent in the Strad article), the whole scene is repulsive. A colleague, responding to her views as presented by “Bought and Sold,” bluntly charges that the “arrogance (and ignorance) that permeates her contribution is disgusting.” The arrogance is manifested in her claim that she has the expertise and knowledge that would qualify her to appraise the monetary value of a student’s purchase. In truth, buying a violin is a classical “blind purchase.” Neither the student nor the teacher can appraise the objective aspects of an instrument, its authenticity and physical condition, those things which determine its monetary value. They lack appropriate professional standing—the teacher to the same degree as his or her student—as makers, restorers, or appraisers of violins. The teachers are something like driving instructors. That person can show you how to signal a turn, shift gears, parallel park, and so on.. But would you want a driving instructor advising you on your purchase of an automobile? It’s doubtful. A car mechanic or automotive engineer would be the logical source of judgment and advice. Of course, if we’re talking about the way an instrument sounds to you, that’s a matter of taste or preference—and, since you’re the one who will play the instrument, it’s your taste and preference (not your teacher’s) which count. |
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Now we come to Professor Stephen Clapp’s assertion that Julliard’s School of Music is protecting itself by promulgating a Code of Ethics. This Code directs that “gifts (which would include commissions on the sale of musical instruments, cash or other valuable merchandise) should be returned upon receipt, with an explanation that acceptance is against Julliard policy.” But Julliard’s Code is like most Codes of Ethics—mere window dressing. Now let us swing back for a direct look at the pedagogical side. Take the way the late Dorothy DeLay, honored as Julliard’s most prominent violin teacher, spoke of instruments and of students’ desire for careers as performers (see The Instrumentalist of July, 1989 [43:12]): There is much more than natural aptitude that has to go into the long training of a concert violinist. Solid family support must be there. I teach some children whose mothers bring them here to study for years and years while the fathers are working hard to earn a living back in Korea or China or Japan. The cost of a fine concert violin runs high into six figures and many families carry two, and sometimes three, mortgages (emphases added). |
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DeLay, while acknowledging the “cost” of all this—a cost which is both monetary and simply human—doesn’t call the whole situation into question. She didn’t question any of this, any more than does the afore-mentioned Mimi Butler who testifies that her bribe-paying fiddle seller, her collaborator, is “a responsible and reputable dealer.” But this situation emphatically ought to be questioned. What is the evidence that wildly expensive antique instruments are essential to allow a hard-working, talented player to really play? And play well? When there is no such evidence, then I find it unconscionable to put hard-working parents through the proverbial wringer. To induce them to believe that their talented child can have a “real career” only if they supply that aspiring young musician with an instrument whose price has nothing to do with an individual’s musical ability? To use fables and fear (“Her teacher says my daughter won’t have a chance without a Stradivarius.”) to drive hard-pressed parents to spend $100,000 and more on an antique object of questionable monetary, and utilitarian, value? Please ask yourself, who benefits? I contend that it’s neither the musician nor the supportive family. It’s the dealer-teacher combo that covertly rakes in profits so distorted that the fact ought to rouse us to indignation. So much for Juliard’s Code of Ethics. The dealers and teachers I’ve described, have each other over the barrel. They need each other. Neither dare expose the other. “Omerta,” the violin dealers’ Code of Silence, is their perverted Code of Ethics. |
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Also see: (Article Text-RIN:152) |
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The Great Violin Hoax-RIN:150 |
