they are foremost in claiming "copyright" (as those of us who spent years and years trying to build library stocks of "contemporary music" know only too well, especially as our endeavours were mostly fruitless due to the exhorbitant costs involved - especially we might say the "copyright" and "performance fee" costs of ever performing them publicly).
I have some sympathy with you there Baz - quite a few projected performances of new work we have tried to mount here have run aground on the issue of extortionate and outrageous demands for performing fees. Most usually these take no account of what can be grossed at the box-office, and the assumption is that "a sponsor" (ha!) should put their hand in their pocket to pay these fees.
However in almost every case of this kind it's been the composer's
publisher or
agent who has scuppered the discussions, usually from motives of utmost avarice with their own interests at heart. To most of them it's a matter of utter indifference if the music in the portfolio they represent is played or not - they would prefer it went unplayed, rather than negotiate on a single cent of the fee. In nearly every case where I have succeeded in contacting the
composer in person, a hugely different attitude has prevailed, and we've been able to reach an agreement in which the music is heard, the composer is paid at least double what the conductor got, and we can still afford to pay the band too.
I think many composers would be utterly horrified at the churlish and mercantile approach their publishers take with enquiries about performances. There are good ones, of course - who will advance an inspection score and sometimes a recording (of course the conductor doesn't need the recording, but it can help enormously to play it to any potential sponsor who hasn't a clue about this composer's music), will discuss with you what the realistic fees for such works could be in the city and country you plan performing, and will even show you scores of other works you might like to program alongside, or which might work even better in your program.
Then there are the bad ones, who send nothing except a Pro Forma Invoice for the first amount that enters their minds, and without a downpayment of 50% of which nothing will be sent to you at all. The truly appalling ones don't reply at all, or don't reply for months - then they send out the wrong score & parts entirely, and expect you to return them at your own cost before they will send the correct ones (whilst you, meantime, have 10 days of rehearsals left, and delivery will take 5 of them). You finally get a set of parts which look like they were used by a previous orchestra to shelter themselves from an explosion in a pencil-factory, with huge cuts crossed-out in ballpoint pen (!), or covered-over with carpet tape (!) which cannot be removed without defacing the printed notes below. All the rehearsal-letters in the score will, of course, fail to match those in the parts (assuming there are any at all).
One composer's agent (regarding an opera production) went further, and sent me a detailed list of instructions about how I was to stage the show, including what costumes were "permitted" for the characters (and from whom they could be hired), furthermore demanding that rehearsal photographs were to be submitted to the agent for inspection during the period of rehearsal... and on which permission to give the performances was contingent!!
Another agent informed me that the composer's Will required that the work be performed in the audience's language only. This required translating it into Russian, and the fee would be $3000 to do so - apparently they had "a Polish gentleman who speaks some Russian" who would undertake the job. No translation we had done ourselves (for example, the one the former Head Vocal Coach of the Bolshoi Theatre had done for us) would be acceptable. Once we contacted the composer's family, however, the situation was amicably resolved and they were delighted to hear we wanted to perform his work
So in my view, the problem lies with agents and publishers who are profoundly ignorant of the works they represent, and who can only be motivated by cash. In frustration at the second delivery of the
wrong score and parts of an opera, I wrote to Schirmer Edition and told them we had poured petrol on the material and made a bonfire... it was the only way I could get them to reply to a month's-worth of one-way correspondence
