Max Glücksmann, born (Mordechai David Glücksmann) (

Czernowitz Chernivtsi ( uk, Чернівці́}, ; ro, Cernăuți, ; see also other names) is a city in the historical region of Bukovina, which is now divided along the borders of Romania and Ukraine, including this city, which is situated on the up ...

Bukovina Bukovinagerman: Bukowina or ; hu, Bukovina; pl, Bukowina; ro, Bucovina; uk, Буковина, ; see also other languages. is a historical region, variously described as part of either Central or Eastern Europe (or both).Klaus Peter BergerT ...

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, March 8, 1875 - October 20, 1946,

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...

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) was an Argentine pioneer of the music and film industries.

Biography

Glücksmann was born in

, then part of the

, and emigrated to Argentina in 1890. Shortly after his arrival in

, Glücksmann began to work as a photographic assistant at the Casa Lepage, along with Eugène Py. Soon after the foundation of

Odeon Records Odeon Records is a record label founded in 1903 by Max Straus and Heinrich Zuntz of the International Talking Machine Company in Berlin, Germany. The label's name and logo come from the Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe in Paris. History Straus an ...

in 1904, Glücksmann was appointed as the importation agent, in

, for European machines and records. He was successful, and soon involved himself in making local records under his own name, ''Discos Glücksmann''. Because of the distances involved, and possibly because of Glücksmann's nationality, Odeon agreed to build a processing and pressing plant for him in

, throwing in a resident

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-trained engineer for good measure. (These were the days, pre-

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, when Argentina had one of the largest and fastest-growing economies in the world.) Glücksmann set out to capture the

tango Tango is a partner dance and social dance that originated in the 1880s along the Río de la Plata, the natural border between Argentina and Uruguay. The tango was born in the impoverished port areas of these countries as the result of a combina ...

market, a task he managed very successfully. By 1914 he had essentially gained overall control of the Argentine record industry, marginalising his only competitor,

Victor The name Victor or Viktor may refer to: * Victor (name), including a list of people with the given name, mononym, or surname Arts and entertainment Film * ''Victor'' (1951 film), a French drama film * ''Victor'' (1993 film), a French shor ...

, by the simple expedient of signing exclusive long-term contracts with the best musicians and, more cannily, the best song ''writers''. Thus Glücksmann had exclusive copyrights to all the hits. Glücksmann controlled the sheet-music and silent movie house business, and had a virtual monopoly on tango until the 1920s. Far from making himself hated by this arrangement, he became a folk hero among musicians by his introduction of

royalties A royalty payment is a payment made by one party to another that owns a particular asset, for the right to ongoing use of that asset. Royalties are typically agreed upon as a percentage of gross or net revenues derived from the use of an asset o ...

, both in music-publishing and in record-making, for the first time in Argentina. ''Discos Glücksmann'' were Argentinized to ''Discos Nacional-Glücksmann'', later simply to ''Discos Nacional'' and finally, after the foundation of

EMI EMI Group Limited (originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records Ltd. or simply EMI) was a British transnational conglomerate founded in March 1931 in London. At the time of its break-up in 201 ...

in 1931, to ''Disco Nacional-

Odeon Odeon may refer to: Ancient Greek and Roman buildings * Odeon (building), ancient Greek and Roman buildings built for singing exercises, musical shows and poetry competitions * Odeon of Agrippa, Athens * Odeon of Athens * Odeon of Domitian, Rome ...

'', the standard label in Argentina,

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and

Uruguay Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...

for the products of ''Industrias Eléctricas y Musicales Odeón, S. A.'', i.e., Argentine EMI. He died at 71 and is buried at Cementerio israelita de Ciudadela, Buenos Aires.

References

External links

Max Glücksmann in tango.info
* 1946 deaths 1875 births Argentine Jews Bukovina Jews Argentine people of Austrian descent Argentine people of Austrian-Jewish descent Argentine people of Romanian-Jewish descent Naturalized citizens of Argentina Austro-Hungarian emigrants to Argentina {{argentina-film-bio-stub