Arthur,
Bill demeans his own analysis when he says that he is not an expert in
Viennese currencies of the time, and suggests that his math may be wrong.
This comparison isn't a matter of arithmetic, it is a matter of comparative
buying power, as he so properly presents. The economists try to measure the
value of the dollar in our lifetimes, but even that is impossible. My
family's first TV was a 12 inch black and white that I bought (an aunt had
given me some stock which I immediately sold to buy the TV so I know the
price). It cost $200, and a Cadillac car at the time was probably about
$2000. I can get a 21 inch TV today for about $200, and a Cadillac for about
$40,000 (don't pick on the details of the prices, I don't shop much).
Bill's final paragraph makes the point, there is no direct comparison as the
relative values of commodities change. The best one can do is to make a
"survival basket" of commodities - food, housing and clothing - and try to
approximate the level of living one could attain from a particular amount of
money per annum. But even that becomes difficult when one considers that I
am probably warmer and more comfortable in my two bedroom condo than Henry
VIII was in his castle. The two dollar a gallon gas of today (but being in
NJ I'm more like a buck fifty) is comparable with the fifteen cents per of
my youth - when you look at comparative incomes. But the annual fee for
tuition and books and room and board at Princeton is much higher. Mine was
$1200 p.a., I gather it approximates $30,000 or more now.
Not to belabor the point, but as the currency inflates (or deflates in
buying power) some things will become cheaper in real terms, some will stay
the same, and some will increase comparatively. So there is no way to put
Beethoven's income into modern currency. Money has no value, the value is in
what it can buy. The strict economic definition of money is "a store of
value and a medium of exchange". You can keep a piece of gold for twenty
years and its value as a medium of exchange may change over that time (for
better or worse), but if you keep a cow that long it will be dead and worth
only the price of the meat (and that of meat that isn't fresh). I always
think of the NYC builder Robert Moses (not a very nice man), he never had
money - he was paid a dollar a year, or some such. He didn't need money as
his empire, the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel authority provided him with a
house on Long Island, an apartment in Manhattan, transportation between
them, and all his business dinners (which were every night). Who needs money
if you have what it can buy. So when you look at the composers of the past
you have to look also at the perks they were provided, not only at the
direct pay. The comparisons to our day are not mathematical, and are a bit
impossible (how many florins for a color TV?).
Best, Jon
----- Original Message -----
From: "Arthur Ness (boston)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "LUTE NET" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2003 8:45 PM
Subject: Beethoven currency query
> This was posted to the musicology list, and may be of interest in light of
> our recent discussions. I forgot to mention that there was a cponference
> at NYU a few years back titled "Thr Mu$ic Bu$ine$$ in the 18th Century."
> John Kmetz organized it, but I had to leave before the interting paper on
> the value of money was read.
>
> Bill Meredith heads the Beetoven Center of the U of Califonia, San Jose.
> He's mentioned prominently in that true detective story about Beethoven's
> hair. (Nice summertime read.)
>
> AJN
> ---------- Forwarded Message ----------
> RE: Beethoven currency query
> From: Bill Meredith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Beethoven currency query
>
> Dear Gail (and those interested):
>
> The question of currencies and today's money often comes up at the
> Beethoven Center. Unfortunately, there is no satisfactory way to say that
> one florin would equal so much in dollars today.
>
> What we have found works very well instead is to explain to elementary
> school teachers and adults and everybody that from the amount of money
> Beethoven received for a work, he could have paid for half a year's worth
> of rent on his apartment in Vienna, for example, or he could have bought
so
>
> many chickens for his table. The ratonale behind this is that some things
> were very expensive in Vienna because they were in severely limited supply
> (rent), others reasonable (some foods, but not all). Julie Moore, in her
> wonderful dissertation that should have been published as a monograph long
> ago ("Beethoven and Musical Economics") discusses all of this -- and much
> more -- in wonderful detail.
>
> For example, Beethoven received 100 gold ducats for the Fifth and Sixth
> Symphonies (Opuses 67 and 68); the Cello Sonata, Opus 69; and the two
> Pianoforte Trios, Opus 70, from Breitkopf & Haertel around September 14,
> 1808. Thus, if you divide the sum earned by the four opus numbers evenly
> (questionable but workable enough for our purposes, and publishers
probably
>
> made more on chamber music than symphonies), each opus number was worth 25
> gold ducats. Beethoven's rent for his apartment in the Pasqualati House
> that year was 500 Florins Bankozettel (Moore, p. 194). If I did the math
> right (using the exhange rate of 1 gold ducat = 4.5 florins
> Conventionsmuenze and using the inflation rate for 1808 that 100 CM
florins
>
> - 228.15 BZ florins), 25 gold ducats was worth 256 Florins BZ, which means
> that he earned half a year's rent for each opus number, or two years of
> rent for the five works. A chicken cost between 72-120 Kreuzer BZ in
Vienna
>
> in 1808 (Moore, p. 549), so Beethoven could have bought a chicken for
> Sunday dinner every week for a little more than year (using the upper cost
> of a chicken) from what he made from one of the opus numbers. (Or 85
> chickens at the cheaper price.)
>
> I have to confess that I am not an expert in these Viennese currencies,
> (especially with the complication of the inflation rates), so if anyone
> needs to correct my math, please let us all know (I'm serious about this).
> (Dr. Moore should really be the one doing this math, but I don't think she
> is on the list.)
>
> A one bedroom spacious apartment in San Francisco similar to Beethoven's
> expensive Vienna apartment in 1808 rents for about $1,800 today, so you
> could say that he earned about $10,800 in rent money for contemporary US
> dollars for the Fifth Symphony. (As is still true, apartments inside what
> became the ring in Vienna were much more expensive that ones outside the
> wall.) A chicken in the Bay area costs about $4-6, which means that he
> earned $284 in food money. This gap shows the problem with trying to say
> what 25 gold ducats would be today, since what money is worth is of course
> related to what things cost.
>
> Bill Meredith
>
>
> --
>
> William Rhea Meredith, PhD
> Director, The Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies
> Professor, School of Music and Dance
>
> Mailing address: Beethoven Center, San Jose State University
> One Washington Square
> SJ CA 95192-0171
> Phone: 408-808-2056
> FAX: 408-808-2060
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> <www.sjsu.edu/depts/beethoven/>
>
>
>
>
