How a Company From Berlin Helped Tango to Get a Move On
A Digest
1. Lindström
Carl Lindström
(1865-1932) establishes his first workshop in Berlin and produces
phonographs and film projectors in 1897. In 1904, his workshop and
the Salon Kinematograph Co. GmbH, also of Berlin, join forces and are
incorporated as the Carl Lindström GmbH. The directors of the Salon
Kinematograph Co., Max Straus and Heinrich Zunz, become the managing
directors of the new company; Lindström is responsible for technical
management and development.
Carl
Lindström, from whose workshop emerged the Lindström AG
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In 1910, the company is
converted into a public company and traded at the Berlin stock
exchange. The English company Fonotipia and its subsidiaries
Fonotipia Milan and International Talking Machine Comp. are acquired.
The latter firm, owner of the record label Odeon, is also foundet in
Berlin.n.
Further acquisitions are
made in 1913 and include the Dacapo Record/Lyrophonwerke (Berlin)
and Favorite Record (Hannover). The Lindström concern has grown to
one of the largest music record producers in the world.
2. Max Glücksmann, 1908-1913
Max (Mordechai David)
Glücksmann (1875-1946) arrives, just 15 years old, in Buenos Aires
and enters the Casa Lepage as an apprentice. The firm is importing
equipment for film and photography. Later, it will furnish the first
movie theaters of the city.
Max Glücksmann |
Glücksmann acquires Casa
Lepage in 1908. With the change in ownership, the firm now also
offers phonographic products of the american company Victor. The main
focus of the business remains the film, however. Glücksmann launches
a production company for documentaries and weekly newsreels. Within
the next 20 years the business grows into the market-dominating film
distributor and theater owner in Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay.
A new business sector
opens up for Glücksmann in 1913: he is made the exclusive
representative (Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay) for the products of
Lindström's trademarks Odeon and Fonotipia. At first, Odeon's
catalog offers an international list of records but beginning in
1914, the “repertorio
criollo” prevails. Among the tango musicians taken under contract
by Glücksmann are Eduardo Arolas and Roberto Firpo, whose orchestra
will dominate the Argentinian record market well into the 1920s.
3. Tango in Paris
At the beginning of the
20th century, an interest in dance music from the New
World—undoubtedly fostered by the developing phonographic
industry—emerges in Europe. It reaches its peak with the tango,
which from 1911 to 1914 balloons from fashion to virtual obsession at
fist in Paris, then spreading all across Europe and North America.
In Germany tango attracts
broad attention for the first time in 1913 after a dance championship
in Baden Baden is widely publicized in the news media. The following
dance season is dominated by tango. It is learned and danced
everywhere. Berlin becomes the German center for tango and enters
into competition with Paris. In both cities international
championships are held, thus competing for the leading role.
Buenos Aires is infected
by the tango fever as well. At first, it is noted as a curious fact
that this simple dance causes such a stir abroad. But soon one
follows the Paris example: dance schools offer courses, competitions
are held, and an increasing number of tango records are offered for
sale.
Pictures
from the school of the tango teacher Carlos Herrera, Buenos Aires,
1913
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4. World Music and the German Record Industry
Phonographs and talking
machines (gramophones) are at first developed to record and play back
the human voice. Quickly it becomes evident, however, that recordings
of music offer a much wider field for commercial exploitation. The
curiosity of hearing new things is taken up as a marketing strategy
very early in the history of the record. Record producers send out
engineers to make recordings in foreign countries. The recordings are
sent back to the home factory were they are processed, made into disk
records, and sold.
The records can also be
sold in the country where the recording was made, but the
transportation costs raise the sales price. In addition, many
countries charge import taxes to protect domestic companies from
foreign competition. In order to avoid transportation costs and
import taxes, Lindström builds factories in foreign countries with
large sales markets.
5. Atlanta
Atlanta is a subsidiary of
a record producer from Berlin, Dacapo Record GmbH / Lyrophonwerke. At
the time of the European tango fever, Atlanta establishes a recording
studio in Buenos Aires and sells the records locally. Tango has a
prominent place in Atlanta's catalog. Records with tango music were
no novelty in Argentina. They were mostly songs with guitar
accompaniment, however. Atlanta offers dance music. The company forms
its own “Atlanta” orchestra, but records other groups (for
example, the City Brass Band, the Rondalla Vazquez, etc. ) as well.
For the first time, the name of a tango musician appears that is
still remembered today: Roberto Firpo.
Announcement
of Atlanta's entry in register of companies in Berlin
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Atlanta's records are sold
only in Argentina, but the music recorded there reaches Germany, too.
The Lyrophonewerke of Berlin (associated with the parent company of
Atlanta, now a subsidiary of Lindström) publishes in 1914 a list of
“original south-american tangos” played by four music groups from
Buenos Aires, among them the Atlanta orchestra and the City Brass
Band of Buenos Aires. It is likely that the other groups were
recorded by Atlanta as well. The “Argentinian Gaucho Quartet”
performs the tangos “La Viruta” and “Vamos a ver” by Vicente
Greco and Francisco Canaro, respectively. Both tangos are also found
on an Atlanta record, however, without an indication of the
performing musicians.
Tango
advertisement by Lyrophonwerke, September 1913
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Atlanta exists in Buenos
Aires for hardly more than a year. Another subsidiary of Lindström
will take its place: Odeon.
6. Odeon and Glücksmann,
1913-1019
Odeon records were sold in
Buenos Aires at least since 1906. The exclusive distributor for
Fonotipia, the parent company of the International Talking Machine
Comp. (Odeon), was Casa Tagini.
In 1913, Fonotipia and its
subsidiaries are incorporated into the Lindström concern. A new
factory of Lindström starts production in Rio de Janeiro the same
year. Max Glücksmann, who has sold until then only phonographic
products by the American company Victor, becomes the exclusive
representative for Odeon and Fonotipia in Argentina, Uruguay, and
Paraguay.
Glücksmann now also sells
records and gramophones by Odeon. The record repertory offered until
1914 remains international. With the closing of Atlanta, however,
Odeon's offering includes an extensive list of “criollo” records.
Roberto Firpo, formerly with Atlanta, is taken under contract by
Glücksmann and becomes the most prominent tango composer and
orchestra conductor for next 10 years. It is likely that Glücksmann
purchased Atlanta's recording equipment since the recordings are done
on the premisses of the Glücksmann company.
Odeon
advertisements with tangos, Buenos Aires, March 1914
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With the outbreak of WWI
it becomes more and more difficult for German companies to
participate in international trade. Odeon continues to release new
records in Buenos Aires unitl 1917. Thereafter, Glücksmann's
musicians are cataloged as “national records” or appear under the
brand name of the artists (“discos Gardel-Razzano“, “discos
Roberto Firpo“, etc.). It is apparently difficult to assert
contractual responsibilities under war conditions.
7. Glücksmann and Odeon,
1920-1923
In 1920, Glücksmann
announces “sensational news”: the first records with
international artists that were produced in the “first and only
factory” in Argentina. Lindström has taken up production in the
most modern factory in South America. The contractual situation has
been cleared up. Glücksmann's records appear now under the label
“Disco Nacional”. The number of the musicians, whose music is
recorded, is still small. The “stars” of the list are Roberto
Firpo, the duo Carlos Gardel and José Razzano, and the singer Lola
Membrives.
From 1922 on, the Odeon
trademark appears again on the record label. Newspaper announcements
point out that only “Disco Nacional” records with the Odeon
trademark are authentic.
The repertory of the
Nacional-Odeon list expands in the following year. New argentine
musicians are taken under contract, for example, Francisco Canaro,
Pacho Maglio, and Juan Carlos Cobián. Musik from Germany is also
present with the “Gypsy-Orchestra Sandor Jozsi”. Sandor Jozsi is
a pseudonym for the violinist Dajos Béla, who leads a dance
orchestra in Berlin, under contract by Odeon. He will become a
fixture in Odeon's list in Germany and Argentina.
Odeon
remains an important connection between music and musicians in
Argentina and Europe. Odeon sells records by Firpo, Canaro, Fresedo
and others in Europe. When Glücksmann's musicians go Europe—as
Carlos Gardel, for example—they record with Odeon. Dajos Béla, who
as a jew has to leave Germany in 1933, moves to Argentina, founds an
orchestra, and composes music for films that are produced by
Francisco Canaro.
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