Organists’ Earnings.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXV, Issue IX, 1 September 1900, Page 384

Organists’ Earnings.

“Truth” says that £ 100 a year is, as things go, by no means bad pay for a parish organist. I believe 1 am right in saying that there is no post of church or cathedral organist exceeding £3OO a year. The organist of St. Paul’s, it is true, may receive a larger sum, but not as his organist’s salary, which is eked out by the not particularly commendable expedient (for which I need not say the organist is not to blame) of making him a “Vicar Choral,” or, in other words, giving him the stipend which should belong to one of the singers, the Cathedral choir, I suppose, being accordingly starved to this extent. Indeed, £lOO a year is, as I understand, above the average of the ordinary parish organist, whose soul, like that of Dr. Pangloss, has perforce to be satisfied with a very modest icompeteney. Many organists certainly earn a good deal less. Taking up some of the professional papers at random, I see in Scotland a post of organist and choirmaster open at £4O a year. An assistant organist offers his services gratuituously in exchange for opportunity for practice. An organist for the parish church of Ratcliffe, who must be a “musician, solfaist, and disciplinarian,” is offered the munificent salary of £2O a year. At St. Paul’s, Dorking, where there is a mixed choir, an organist and choirmaster was in December last advertised for, the salary being £4O a year, and the vicar demanded testimonials not only as to musical ability, but also as to “personal godliness.” It would be useless to multiply instances, and, indeed, in no ease in recent advertisements have I found a salary over £6O a year offered to a church as distinguished from a cathedral organist.