{"id":891,"date":"2010-04-16T14:53:03","date_gmt":"2010-04-16T14:53:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/faujsa.fau.edu\/blog\/?p=891"},"modified":"2026-02-12T14:12:30","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T14:12:30","slug":"making-beautiful-music-together-alma-gluck-efrem-zimbalist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rsa.fau.edu\/blog\/collections\/judaic-collection\/making-beautiful-music-together-alma-gluck-efrem-zimbalist\/","title":{"rendered":"Making beautiful music together: Alma Gluck &#038; Efrem Zimbalist"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/rsa.fau.edu\/alma-gluck\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"405\" height=\"599\" src=\"http:\/\/rsa.fau.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/Efrem_Zimbalist-Alma_Gluck.jpg\" alt=\"Portrait of Alma Gluck and Efrem Zimbalist\" class=\"wp-image-901\" srcset=\"https:\/\/rsa.fau.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/Efrem_Zimbalist-Alma_Gluck.jpg 405w, https:\/\/rsa.fau.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/Efrem_Zimbalist-Alma_Gluck-202x300.jpg 202w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 405px) 100vw, 405px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Portrait of Alma Gluck and Efrem Zimbalist<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p>Who is your favorite star couple? From Debbie Reynolds&nbsp;&amp; Eddie Fisher to Brad Pitt &amp; Angelina Jolie, love among&nbsp;celebrities is exciting.&nbsp; We always want to know more. That&#8217;s the way it is today&#8230; it is also&nbsp;the way it was&nbsp;a hundred years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 1911 two Jewish superstars of classical music met and fell in love. They were young, they were talented, and they made beautiful music together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Zimbalist-Gluck romance provided lots of material for the gossips of&nbsp;their day. While the idea of such a&nbsp;wonderful pairing of talents was thrilling, there were those who pointed out that Gluck was six years older,&nbsp;as well as&nbsp;a divorcee with a daughter. Scandalous!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Before and during the early years of her marriage to the violin virtuoso, Efrem Zimbalist, famed operatic soprano <a href=\"https:\/\/rsa.fau.edu\/alma-gluck\">Alma Gluck<\/a> enjoyed a highly successful recording career.&nbsp;Her&nbsp;release of <em><a href=\"http:\/\/faujsa.fau.edu\/jsa\/search_music_LP.php?jsa_num=100782&amp;queryWhere=&amp;queryValue=100782&amp;artisttext=gluck&amp;artist=contains&amp;titletext=carry&amp;title=contains&amp;selectgenre=&amp;selectlanguage=&amp;musiconly=&amp;id=&amp;select=title&amp;side=A&amp;track=04&amp;fetch=&amp;pagenum=1\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Carry Me Back to Old Virginny<\/span><\/a> <\/em>for the Victor Talking Machine Co. was the first celebrity classical recording to sell over one million copies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After their marriage&nbsp;Victor\/Victrola capitalized on a sure bet: recording the newlyweds together. You can hear two of the most popular of these recordings by clicking on the record labels below.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/rsa.fau.edu\/album\/1497\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1207\" height=\"1207\" src=\"http:\/\/rsa.fau.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/506089.jpg\" alt=\"Record label of Hatikvah\" class=\"wp-image-906\" title=\"506089\" srcset=\"https:\/\/rsa.fau.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/506089.jpg 1207w, https:\/\/rsa.fau.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/506089-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/rsa.fau.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/506089-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/rsa.fau.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/506089-1024x1024.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1207px) 100vw, 1207px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Record label of Hatikvah<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">In his biography of<strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/rsa.fau.edu\/efrem-zimbalist\">Efrem Zimbalist<\/a><\/strong> (Efrem Zimbalist:\u00a0A Life, 2004), Roy Malan\u00a0 describes the process of making a recording in the days prior to the electric microphone. &#8220;The technique was very basic: a large metal horn was suspended from the ceiling; connected from its small end was a flexible pipe that pssed through a thick curtain to the etching machine in an adjourning room. Singers were instructed to face away from the horn on particularly high notes. Violinists had to position themselves with the sound holes facing directly into the horn&#8217;s mouth&#8230;.The possibility of knocking against the metal rim had constantly to be guarded against (p.117).&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">When they recorded together &#8220;the singer and violinist each had separate pick-up horns; Efrem later joked that his was much smaller than Alma&#8217;s: &#8216;They didn&#8217;t want me to play too loudly and spoil everything!&#8217; (p. 135)&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/rsa.fau.edu\/album\/5222\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/rsa.fau.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/5079411.jpg\" alt=\"Record Label of Old Folks at Home\" class=\"wp-image-910\" title=\"507941\"\/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Record Label of Old Folks at Home<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Among their most financially successful recordings was the Zionist hymn, <a href=\"https:\/\/rsa.fau.edu\/album\/444\"><em>Hatikva<\/em><\/a>, produced in 1919, and <a href=\"https:\/\/rsa.fau.edu\/album\/14414\"><em>Old Folks at Home<\/em><\/a> by Stephen Foster, produced in 1915.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">While rehearsing for this latter recording, Zimbalist discovered that the obbligato was inadequate. He came upon the idea of playing Dvorak&#8217;s <em>Humoresque<\/em> at a slightly slower tempo instead. It was recorded this way and the recording became one of their most popular.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Hear the music.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The JSA has collected 20 song recordings featuring the combined talents of Alma Gluck and Efrem Zimbalist.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\">To hear all 20 song recordings,<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/rsa.fau.edu\/alma-gluck\">click here.<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Who is your favorite star couple? From Debbie Reynolds&nbsp;&amp; Eddie Fisher to Brad Pitt &amp; Angelina Jolie, love among&nbsp;celebrities is exciting.&nbsp; We always want to know more. That&#8217;s the way it is today&#8230; it is also&nbsp;the way it was&nbsp;a hundred years ago. In 1911 two Jewish superstars of classical music met and fell in love. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[737,413],"tags":[79,21,383],"class_list":["post-891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-collections","category-judaic-collection","tag-alma-gluck","tag-classical-music","tag-zimbalist"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Making beautiful music together: Alma Gluck &amp; Efrem Zimbalist - Recorded Sound Archives<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Discover Alma Gluck &amp; Efrem Zimbalist making beautiful music together \u2014 historic duets and recordings preserved in the Recorded Sound Archives.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/rsa.fau.edu\/blog\/collections\/judaic-collection\/making-beautiful-music-together-alma-gluck-efrem-zimbalist\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Making beautiful music together: Alma Gluck &amp; Efrem Zimbalist - 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