Muzfond, Royalties, and Popularity

This chapter describes the basic system of material support available to composers and musicologists. During the Stalin period, a two-part institutional system provided most composers and musicologists with their fundamental material support apart from what they earned in jobs at research institutes and conservatories or as consultants for performance ensembles and government institutions. The two components of the system were the financial institution controlled by the Composers' Union leadership, Muzfond, and the royalties and copyright administration. Despite repeated findings of malfeasance and fiscal indiscipline, the Muzfond system was never substantially reformed. Leaving it alone ensured that the Composers' Union leadership would exercise its practical discretion in determining hierarchies of basic support. Meanwhile, the Copyright Administration provided basic material support to composers who had pieces performed, and it also became the focus of prolonged attacks. The extraordinarily high royalties that a very few composers earned were tainted by a sense of illegitimacy.