Henryk Gold

Who is Henryk Gold?

Henryk Gold was a Polish Jewish composer, arranger, and orchestra director.

He was born in Warsaw to a musical family: his mother Helena was of the famous Warsaw klezmer Melodysta family, and his father Michael was a flautist in the Warsaw Opera Orchestra. He was the brother of Artur Gold. He studied in Warsaw, his teachers including Stanisław Barcewicz.

When silent movies in Poland lost popularity following the arrival of Al Jolson's The Jazz Singer, thousands of Polish musicians who'd played in the movie theaters lost their livelihood; they began to create large and small orchestras playing dance music and jazz. Artur and Henryk Gold, the brothers Jerzy and Stanislaw Petersburski, Zygmunt Karasinski and Szymon Kataszek, Kazimierz Englard, Julian Halicki were the pioneers; Henryk Gold was chief among them, giving concerts at the famous Ziemiańska Cafe on Kredytowa Street and the revue theater “Morskie-Oko” on Sienkiewicz Street. He ran the nightclub “Adria” with his brother on Moniuszki Street.

Gold wrote hundreds of tangos, polkas, foxtrots, and waltzes, interpolating Jewish motifs.