Gimpel’s Theatre, Lwów

Abstract

This chapter examines how the music of the Yiddish theatre was preserved on gramophone records between 1904 and 1913. It describes how the gramophone brings to life the sounds and atmosphere of the popular Yiddish theatre in Galicia in the most vivid manner imaginable. It also talks about the record companies that focused on Gimpel's theatre in Lwów, such as Favorite, Beka, and the Gramophone Company that recorded about 800 titles of Yiddish theatre music. The chapter provides a very brief history of the theatre founded by Jakob Ber Gimpel and gives an overview of the recordings the theatre made in the decade preceding the First World War. It mentions the field recordings being made in rural Hungary by Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály.