Update 22 September 2015: On 20 November 2009 the Colmar Appeal Tribunal overturned Volker Hartung's conviction of illegally employing musicians without work permits and cleared him of all criminal charges.
For the German conductor Volker Hartung it had seemed like a good evening's work. The audience was clapping enthusiastically and his young orchestra had just finished playing Ravel's Bolero and Bizet's Carmen. Just as Hartung was about to pick up his baton for an encore, however, French police who had been waiting outside Strasbourg's Palais de la Musique walked up to the conductor and arrested him.
The raid last week, in which 15 members of the Cologne New Philharmonic were taken into custody, followed allegations that the 49-year-old conductor had been illegally employing musicians from eastern Europe without work permits.
Instead of paying the standard rate, it is alleged, the conductor was giving his musicians just €30 (£21) a day and bussing them between hotels to different European venues.
The operation last Tuesday followed a police raid last October in Nice on another of Hartung's concerts.
In a statement released by
his lawyer, Dirk Sattelmaier, Hartung claimed he was the victim of France's unions.
He also said French police had treated him and his orchestra not as "artists" but like "hardened criminals". He was released after two nights in prison.
Mr Sattelmaier said yesterday it was a "disgrace" to suggest Mr Hartung was paying "slave wages". He said: "The musicians were earning between €80 and €120 a day. They were not all from eastern Europe; we also have a young woman oboist from Australia. She speaks English."
Yesterday, however, Germany's orchestra union, which
represents 13,200 musicians, joined in the attack. It claimed that the conductor was cheating Germans out of jobs at a time when many German musicians were unemployed. "What he does is shameless exploitation," Gerald Mertens, the union's head, said, adding: "The problem is that he is operating in a grey area."
Around 500 students graduate from German music schools every year but only 100 find orchestral jobs. "It costs €12,000 a concert to employ a German orchestra; Mr Hartung was doing it for €1,800. This is massively unfair," Mr Mertens said.
Yesterday French police confirmed that the conductor had been arrested in Luxembourg, where he lives with his French wife, on suspicion of "illegal activity". He was released last week with a caution and banned from performing again in France until further notice, a police spokesman said.
Yesterday Hartung's lawyer said the orchestra's 62 members were resident in Germany. "There's no point in trying to contact Mr Hartung," he added. "He doesn't want to talk about it."
