The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra has made beautiful music for a long time.

But the labor fight between the Symphony and its musicians sounds about as good as a first-time trumpet player.

The musicians have stopped getting paychecks and the Woodruff Arts Center has locked them out of their facilities. The first concert of the season is in a month.

The two sides are fighting over $1.2 million in payments to musicians in a battle over a new two-year contract between the ASO and its players.

Maestro, cue the nasty press statements.

The musicians’ union says they offered to take a $2 million a year cut as long as management agreed to make equal cuts in administrative salaries.

But Woodruff and the ASO say “our last, best, and final offer” is for the players to take a $2.6 million a year cut. There would be no corresponding reductions in management salaries. The press release says administrative personnel have already taken cuts, while the musician’s pay has increased by 23.6 percent since 2006.

“We cannot settle at this [$4 million] amount if we are to ensure the long-term health of the orchestra,” said Stanley Romanstein, president of the ASO, in a statement. “We have presented the musicians’ union with our last, best, and final offer — they have yet to respond.”

“We offered up an unprecedented amount of concessions, and ASO management was in agreement that we were doing our share,” said Joel Dallow a spokesman for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Players Association. “The Woodruff executive board does not believe that $4 million over two years is enough.”

Since March, the ASO and its 93 musicians have been trying to come up with a collective bargaining agreement that would have replaced the recently expired one.

According to Romanstein, the average compensation of the musicians is $131,000, including free health and dental coverage, free instrument insurance, pension benefits and eight weeks of paid vacation.

The latest round of negotiations took place in the shadow of a $20 million debt the ASO is projected to face by the end of next year. Last year, while the orchestra brought in $40 million in revenue, it spent $45 million.