R. Lachmann (taken in 1932); extracted from Fig. 9, Courtesy of Prof. Sir Peter Lachmann
H.G. Farmer (taken in 1932); extracted from photo FC 503/114 in the Farmer Collection)
My previous study, Henry George Farmer and the First International Congress of Arab Music (Cairo 1932) published by E.J. Brill in 2015, was based on the documents Farmer preserved in the first of two scrapbooks relating to his participation as one of its principal delegates.<sup>1</sup> Among the other prominent European, North African, and Near Eastern delegates was the German-born Robert Lachmann, a comparative musicologist, librarian, and Arabist who initially alluded to the impending Congress (originally planned for 1931) in his thirty-fifth letter to Farmer (dated Feb. 19th, 1930). For this study, I decided to examine and clarify (with critical annotations) the contents of Lachmannâs earlier and later epistles that were readily accessible,<sup>2</sup> and to provide, as I did for the Farmer project, the essential accompanying biographical and background material.
In all, Lachmannâs sixty-four typewritten/handwritten letters and postcards can be grouped conveniently into five categories, the first series of which (nos. 1-12, dating from Dec. 23rd, 1923 to Nov. 2nd, 1926) may be described as introductory, wherein Lachmann addressed Farmer as Mr.<sup>3</sup> By June 28th, 1926, when Farmer earned his doctorate, he was thereafter addressed as such from the beginning of the second series (nos. 13-34, covering Nov. 14, 1926 to Feb. 2nd, 1930).<sup>4</sup> It was also during this period when Farmer first met Lachmann in Berlin (in Sept. of 1927), where he was examining Arab treatises at the Preussische Staatsbibliothek. The third series (nos. 35-48, written from Feb. 19th, 1930 to late Dec. 1931 or early Jan. 1932) opens by mentioning the possibility of an Arab music Conference in Cairo and concludes with doubts about its realization. Resolving the glitches that hampered the Organising Committeeâs initial plans, the Congress took place from March 14th through April 3rd, 1932, during which Farmer and Lachmann reunited for the second time. The fourth (nos. 49-56, covering Oct. 3rd, 1932 to Apr. 11th, 1935) relates to the post-Cairo Congress years, ending with Lachmannâs revelation that he was preparing for a stay in Palestine. And, the fifth and final series (nos. 57-9 and 61-4, dating from Jan. 1st, 1936 to Sept. 15th, 1938) embodies Lachmannâs last letters from Jerusalem.<sup>5</sup> Spanning a period of fifteen years, they covered approximately a third of his life before his premature death.
During that period Farmer was settled with his wife and daughter in Glasgow, where he served as musical director at the Empire Theatre while conveniently apportioning his schedule to earn his M.A. (in 1924) and Ph.D. (in 1926) from the University of Glasgow. When the Berliner Lachmann initiated his first letter to Farmer (in 1923), he had already completed, during the previous year, his doctorate at Friedrich-Wilhelms Universität. It was not until late April of 1935 that he immigrated to Palestine, where, from Jerusalem, he addressed his final letter (in mid-Sept. of 1938), just eight months prior to his death on May 8th, 1939 at the age of forty-six. His passing preceded (by almost four months) the onset of the Second World War (Sept. 1st).
It is unfortunate that my title could not read: The Correspondence between Robert Lachmann and Henry George Farmer. Whereas Farmer took the utmost care in preserving Lachmannâs letters among those he received from his personal and professional correspondents, Lachmann surely had every intention to follow suit, but circumstances prevailed. The political upheaval that was unfolding in Germany while he and Farmer were in attendance at the Cairo Congress had become increasingly volatile following his return to Berlin in mid-May of 1932. When the Nazis assumed full power in March of 1933, bringing to an end the Weimar Republic, Lachmann had to confront the humiliating situations that were increasingly imposed upon the Jewish population of the newly formed Third Reich. Deeply preoccupied about the safety of his family and sensing the imminence of his forced retirement from the Staatsbibliothek (which ultimately occurred on Dec. 30th, 1933), he had already taken steps in September to obtain employment in England (see ltr. no 51a), his preferred choice.<sup>6</sup>
Until his departure for Palestine he had possessed all of Farmerâs letters, yet among those that were later addressed to him in Jerusalem only one postcard from Farmer (see Chap. 3, Fig. 29) was preserved at the Lachmann Archive. Lachmann was indeed an avid and consummate correspondent as attested to by the many precious letters he retained from his parents,<sup>7</sup> extended family, friends, and revered colleagues (such as George Herzog, Hornbostel,<sup>8</sup> Jaap Kunst,<sup>9</sup> Curt Sachs, Judah L. Magnes, and other administrators from the Hebrew University). We can only hope that Farmerâs letters and possibly other undisclosed ones will be discovered in the near future.
What Iâve learned about Lachmannâs personal life and activities are but mere gleanings from the varied published and unpublished documents that I was able to examine. While my descriptions of his Berlin years (1892 to May 1935) include aspects of his professional life that have hitherto remained unknown, there remain important gaps concerning his European years that have not been fully explored, particularly those concerning his family life, early music education, undergraduate and graduate years at Friedrich-Wilhelms Universität (Berlin), varied fieldtrips to North Africa, and his experiences and primary duties as a librarian at Kiel Universität and subsequent employment at the Prussian Staatsbibliothek. Raised in a bilingual home (by a German father and English mother), it is not entirely clear, how (apart from his two male siblings, who became lawyers) he gravitated toward the study of linguistics,<sup>10</sup> comparative musicology,<sup>11</sup> and later librarianship for his livelihood. Of his personal life nothing is known, other than his lifelong bouts of poor health (pulmonary disorders, especially the recurring bronchial attacks that led to his eventual undoing). Among his former mentors, Erich M. von Hornbostel (d. 1935), Curt Sachs, and Johannes Wolf remained his most loyal friends. Of his Arabist and Arab colleagues, he enjoyed the company of the Tunisians Baron Rodolphe dâErlanger (d. 1932), Ḥasan Ḥusni âAbd al-WahhÄb, and the Egyptian MaḥmÅ«d Aḥmad al-ḤefnÄ«.
One will see in his letters to Farmer that he dealt with such matters as professional activities (including his varied librarian positions and fieldwork experiences), ongoing projects (editing and publishing), insights into North African urban and rural music, mutual problems encountered in translating Arabic and Greek treatises (intervals, modal scales, rhythm, lute tablatures, tunings, instruments, etc.), and critical comments concerning the varied publications they exchanged, plus personal thoughts and illnesses.
For Chapter Two (concerning Lachmannâs Palestinian years) I have relied heavily on the information provided by Edith Gerson-Kiwi (d.1992), Ruth Katz, and Ruth F. Davis. Gerson-Kiwi worked closely with Lachmann, first as one of his students and later as his assistant. Upon his death, she was designated somewhat precipitately as his unofficial successor. During the preceding year, it was her impressive contribution to the initial issue of Musica hebraica (1938), wherein she drew attention to Lachmannâs Archive and its activities, that undoubtedly lent credence to her succession. Yet, it was not until the 1970s that she was able to delve more deeply into Lachmannâs life and achievements.<sup>12</sup> Having previously published an article on the state of âMusicology in Israelâ (1958), she thereafter contributed two primary studies: âTwo anniversariesâ¦â (1973-74), and âRobert Lachmannâ¦â (1974), followed by her splendid editions of Lachmannâs posthumous works (issued in 1973 and 1978), the second of which comprised the original text of his Gesänge auf der Insel Djerba.<sup>13</sup>
Ruth Katzâs The Lachmann problem (2003) remains the fundamental study for Lachmannâs Palestinian years. Evolving from an earlier contribution âA missed opportunity: Robert Lachmann and the beginning of ethnomusicological research in the Hebrew Universityâ (1997), which she coauthored with Jenny Oizert-Levin, Katz examined with the utmost care his continued struggles with the University and ongoing activities supported by extensive documentation (mainly letters, reports, etc.) drawn from the Universityâs archives and Lachmannâs personal files from the National Library of Israel. UnforÂtunately her book lacked an index, which would have helped immensely to connect the numerous administrative officials mentioned throughout. NoneÂtheless, Katz described most vividly how Lachmannâs Palestinian years represented the culmination of a professional life that sought fulfilment in the face of obstacles that could not be surmounted.
Lachmannâs series of radio talks on Oriental music, which was transmitted by the Palestine Broadcasting Service, has been painstakingly studied and edited by Ruth Davis in The âOriental musicâ broadcasts, 1936-37 (2013). Here she provides us with his original scripts and musical transcriptions of selected performances. Supplemented with copious notes, she managed to integrate his talks with his ongoing archival activities and professsional relationships with singers and instrumentalists. In her introduction, she furnishes the context for his talks and includes editorial commentaries on each which are rife with analyses of the varied vocal and instrumental genres that Lachmann recorded, including information about several of his performers, particularly the Iraqi musician Ezra Aharon.<sup>14</sup>
Apart from Lachmannâs administrators and associates at the University, the role of Chancellor Judah L. Magnes is vividly depicted throughout the second chapter as Lachmannâs staunch supporter. Other important contemporaries from whose writings I was able to obtain firsthand information about Lachmannâs Jerusalem years included the Palestinian Arab WÄsif JawharrÄ«ya,<sup>15</sup> Sofie Lentschner, one of his former students,<sup>16</sup> and the avant-garde composer Stefan Wolpe.<sup>17</sup>
Musical activities during the Mandate period (1923-48) were widely advertised and reported in the varied Palestinian dailies such as Haaretz (Tel Aviv), The Palestine post, and The Jerusalem post, which also included daily listings of the musical programmes and lectures presented by the PBS from 1937 onward. Among the following works which Iâve perused for useful information concerning musical activities during the Mandate period (see bibliography) include: Philip V. Bohlman (1986, 1989, 1992, and with R. Davis, 2007); Verena Bopp (2007),<sup>18</sup> Ruth Davis (2010), Gila Flam (1986 and 2005),<sup>19</sup> Irene Heskes (1997), Jehoash Hirshberg (20022 and 2010),<sup>20</sup> Barbara von der Lühe (1999 and 2000), and Stefan Wolpe (1939).<sup>21</sup> For the Arab musical scene during the Mandate period, I drew material from WÄsif JawharrÄ«yaâs edited diary (see n. 15), as well as the contributions of Christian Poché (20017), Rima Nasir Tarazi (2017), and Rachel Beckles Willson (2013). A useful study concerning musical life in the Christian communities of Jerusalem was undertaken by Maureen Tschaikov (1993).
This study could not have been accomplished without the collaboration of Sheila M. Craik, former Music Librarian at the University of Glasgow Library. Working as we did âacross the pondâ during the previous Farmer project, she remained not only an official link to that institution, but engaged diligently in every aspect of this project, scrutinizing and correcting each of my drafts, suggesting bibliographical materials of extreme pertinence, and providing wise counsel toward overcoming the many problems I confronted. For me, our working relationship has been both a distinct pleasure and a source of deep friendship.
Israel J. Katz
Research Associate
University of California at Davis
Notes
1. The scrapbook belongs to the Farmer Collection, housed in the Special Collection wing of the Glasgow Univ. Library under the call number (FC 503). For its contents see I.J. Katz, Henry George Farmerâ¦, 140-1. 2.
Also included in the Farmer Collection under the call number (FC 467/1-90).
3. Farmerâs 1915 translation of F. Salvador-Danielâs La musique arabe, ses rapports avec la musique grecque et le chant grégorien, Algiers 1863, which Lachmann purchased at William Reevesâ London Bookshop some eight months earlier, was the reason for his initial letter. At that time, Farmer was studying for his Masters of Arts degree (awarded on July 4, 1924).
4. This included copies of Farmerâs letters to Lachmann of Nov. 11, 1926 and Jan. 5, 1929 (FC 467/17 and /33, resp.).
5. The third letter in this series (no. 60) was addressed from Berlin, where he sojourned during his usual annual leaves.
6. We will learn that upon his return from Cairo, Lachmann conferred with Johannes Wolf, who had visited Jerusalem directly after his participation at the same Congress. There Wolf met privately with Judah L. Magnes, then Chancellor of the recently established Hebrew University, during which they discussed the possibility of creating a position for Lachmann. But it was not until Feb. 4th, 1934 that Lachmann decided to contact Magnes.
7. His lifelong devotion to his parents is evident in the hundreds of letters addressed to them whenever and from wherever he travelled. They contain a trove of invaluable information about his adventures, replete with descriptions of the places he visited and people with whom he came in contact.
8. A study of the seventy-two letters from Hornbostel would make a most worthy conÂtribuÂtion. Ruth Katz, in âThe Lachmann problemâ⦠(249:n. 110) expressed her hope to address the methodological issues discussed therein in a future publication. One should also note the correspondence between Kunst and Hornbostel in Marjolijn van Roonâs âFrom BanÂdung to Berlinâ¦â (1993).
9. There are forty-five letters to Kunst in L.M. Proosdij-ten Have and M. van Roon, Jaap Kunst correspondence, 1920-40 (1992).
10. Concerning his knowledge of Arabic, as recollected in a letter Curt Sachs addressed to Farmer decades later in Sept. of 1941, it was at the Wünsdorf Prisoner-of-War Camp at Zossen, where Lachmann learned the language during his Army tour of duty (1914-7) among its North African Moslem captives. Befriending native musicians, he became deeply interested in their traditional songs. During a visit [date unknown] to the camp by Hornbostel and Sachs, both were so deeply impressed with Lachmannâs transcriptions of the native melodies he collected that they encouraged him to study musicology after the war. What is unclear, according to several sources, is that Lachmann was assigned to the camp as a Dolmetscher (interpreter), thus begging the question: Where could he have obtained previous knowledge of the language to be granted such an assignment? None-theless, it was solely from his experience at Wünsdorf that he decided to pursue the study of Arab music, focusing mainly on the urban (town) music of North Africa.
11. Lachmann was two years old when Carl Stumpf established the Psychological Institute at Friedrich Wilhelm Univ. in 1894. By 1900, Stumpf had incorporated its sound archive, wherein he recorded a group of Thai theatre musicians. In 1904, both he and his former pupil Hornbostel founded the Berlin Phonogramm-Archiv, which in 1923 was acquired by the Prussian state to be absorbed in the Staatlichen Hochschule für Musik. Thereafter under Hornbostelâs directorship, the Phonogramm-Archiv became affiliated with the Ethnologisches Museum (formerly known as the Königliches Museum für Völkerkunde, since 1884) and was soon transformed into one of the most prominent sound archives of its time. There the budding discipline of vergleichende Musikwissenchaft was gaining traction, drawing a number of outstanding students, including Lachmann. Collectively the group became known as the âBerlin Schoolâ of comparative musicologists. Although Lachmannâs early involvement has not been fully clarified, he was always considered one of its principal exponents. â Walter Graf (1974) traced the development of vergleichende Musikwissenschaft from the writings of the Austrian scholars Richard Wallenschek (1860-1917) and Robert Lach (1874-1958) to Guido Adler (1855-1941), including the earlier contributions by the English Alexander John Ellis (1814-90) and from the German Hermann von Helmholtz (1821-94) to the works of the Germans Carl Stumpf (1848-1936), Otto Abraham (1872-1926), and the Austrian-born Erich M. von Hornbostel (1877-1935). Thereafter he discussed the major figures that followed, together with their writings, highlighting what the Austrians and Germans had contributed to the burgeoning discipline of comparative musicology. It was Jaap Kunst who suggested a better name for the discipline in the subtitle of his 1950 publication Musicologica: A study of the nature of ethno-musicologyâ¦. Bruno Nettl (1973), who acknowledged Kunstâs substitution, felt that by 1950 (i.e., five years after the end of World War II), the former name had fallen into disuse. Thereby he undertook an examination of the thorny issues regarding comparison and the comparative method in ethnomusicology. An enlightening historical perspective of the definitions of âComparaÂtive musicologyâ and âEthnomusicologyâ was contributed by Alan P. Merriam (1977).
12. Explaining the long delay Gerson-Kiwi (âRobert Lachmann:⦠1974:103) informed that from the years 1940 to 1960 Lachmannâs materials were stored in one of the buildings of the old University campus on Mount Scopus. Unaccessible, particularly during the years 1948 to 1967, there were occasional fortnightly United Nationsâ convoys which enabled designated personnel, Gerson-Kiwi among them, to rescue the old Archiveâs holdings for transferral to the Universityâs new Givat Ram campus. Everything that was retrieved was incorporated into the newly established National Sound Archive at the Music Department of the Jewish National and University Library (today the National Library of Israel). The Universityâs Jewish Music Center, established at the same time, undertook the cataloguing of the repossessed archival material as one of its initial projects. Her inventory of the archive is provided on pp. 104-8.
13. For Lachmannâs complete scholarly writings, listed chronologically, see App. 1.
14. See also E. Gerson-Kiwi (1937), Amnon Shiloah (1983, 2000-1, 2003, and 20071), and Esther Warkov (1986).
15. Edited by Issam Nassar and Salim Tamari (2014).
16. See her âFieldwork in Jewish musicâ (1939).
17. Wolpe was profoundly influenced by Lachmannâs ongoing fieldwork as he expressed in his first Referat, which he read before the Music Commissionâs initial conference of the World Centre for Jewish Music in May of 1938. See his ââDie Lieder dieser Völker sind keine Museumsstückeââ⦠(2010) and the contributions of Austin Clarkson (2002, 2003, 2008, and <http://www.wolpe.org>), Brigid Cohen (2012), Barbara von der Lühe (2000), and Heidy Zimmermann (2008).
18. Both Bopp and Heskes discussed the American-based MILAMM and its support of musical research projects in Palestine from 1931 to 1939. Bopp, moreover, devoted a portion of her article (pp. 205-11) to the organisationâs dealings with Lachmann.
19. The former concerns the Yemenite singer Beracha Zefira. See also A. Shiloah 2000-1.
20. Hirshberg presents a broader view, commencing with the wave of Jewish immigration to Palestine in 1880, motivated by modern nationalism, as the precise year for studying the social history of music of its growing Jewish community. In his second contribution, he focuses on the refugee Jewish composers of art music who immigrated to Palestine between the years 1931 and 1939.
21. Von der Lühe (1999) drew her material from both written sources and reports of living witnesses concerning the German-speaking musicians who emigrated to Palestine after 1933. Bringing their vibrant German culture, they established and supported many of the musical institutions that continue to exist in present-day Israel.