Introduction

The corpus of historical collections with music from the Arab world (30 collections out of a total of 350) among the wax cylinder collections of the Berlin Phonogramm-Archiv (BPhA) is relatively small compared with those from other regions of the world, for example, Africa and the South Seas. Whereas collections from Africa, the South Seas, and other parts of the world (South America, Europe, East Asia) have already been discussed in historical and recent studies, collections of music from the Arab world have only rarely been studied.1

My intention here is to summarize and review the collections of music from the Arab world based on the existing catalogue (Ziegler 2006). Since then, more research has been done in the BPhA and the source communities. Hence, my article is not a repetition of the respective entries in the catalogue; instead, my focus here is now on the underlying collecting strategies of the archive, which I explore by looking at the collections themselves against the background of the history of the institution and its protagonists. The history of the BPhA has already been discussed at length (Simon 2000; Ziegler 2006, 2020).

Collections of music from the Arab world (three periods)

The collections of music from the Arab world will be presented according to the date of their recording.2 For practical reasons, it is reasonable to distinguish three periods between the foundation of the Archive in 1900 and its dissolution in 1945. The periods reflect the changes in the administration of the archive in terms of management, location, and organization due to the political situation at the time. The first period starts in 1900 and ends in 1918, marked by the end of World War I. During this time the Archive was part of the Psychological Institute of Berlin University headed by Carl Stumpf and Erich von Hornbostel. The Archive was respected worldwide and successful in collecting and publishing.3 The second period starts in 1919 and ends in 1933. The Archive became part of the Staatliche akademische Hochschule für Musik and could not act as independently as before. The most important figure during this period was Robert Lachmann, who was the driving force in the collection and publication of Arab music. The third period, starting in 1933 and ending in 1945, is marked by the decline of the archive and its final termination.

The first period 1900–1918

The first period comprises ten collections. The collections are not homogeneous or equally important; they differ regarding the availability, content, region, technical quality, and number of cylinders. Unfortunately, not all collections have been digitized yet, and the collections of Wreszinski and Artbauer are not yet available in digital format.

The archive's first collection of Arab music included 16 cylinders recorded by Paul Traeger in Tunisia in 1903. Paul Traeger (1867–1933) was not a musicologist but a wealthy private scholar who was able to intensively pursue his ethnological and historical interests. This collection comprises songs and instrumental melodies; the pieces are all provided with a short description of the performer and the content of the piece. Erich von Hornbostel was obviously fascinated and immediately began to transcribe and analyze the music. However, this was not as easy as he thought, because he had difficulties with the pitch not corresponding to the European classical well-tempered system. The microtonal third especially attracted his interest, and, moreover, accurate measurements of the pitch proved the stability of the non-tempered intervals. In order to follow the questions of pitch and to learn more about Arab music, Hornbostel had the chance to make recordings with a group of Tunisian musicians who were performing in Berlin in Castan's Panoptikum in 1904. The 13 cylinder recordings present songs and instrumental melodies, which partly overlap with recordings made by Traeger the year before. The music included "Bauchtanzmusik", songs, and instrumental melodies on the ud and the bagpipe. Unfortunately, only 1 of the 13 cylinders has survived. Hornbostel's first publication on Arab music appeared in 1906 based on these two collections (Hornbostel 1906). Hornbostel transcribed and analyzed all of Traeger's recordings as well as his own recordings in this fundamental study. Thereby, he was confident that the similarity of the melodies in both collections indicates the reliability of the material. In this study, Hornbostel discovered basic principles of Arab music and expressed his hope to "receive more material from this musically highly developed cultural area" (Hornbostel 1906:43).

New recordings from Tunisia were given to the archive just one year later, in 1906. They had been made by Richard Karutz in different places in Tunisia, in Gabes, Mouknine, and Sfax. Richard Karutz (1867–1945) was a physician, who settled in Lübeck, and, at the same time, served as the director of the Museum of Ethnology there. The music on the 22 cylinders presents Arab and Berber songs and instrumental melodies in a great variety – wedding and circumcision songs, and melodies. Karutz expressively mentions the term "Berufsmusiker" (professional musician), which indicates a relatively high quality and authenticity of the piece. Unfortunately, these recordings have not yet been studied in detail.

The three cylinders "Archiv Syrien" made by von Hornbostel in 1905 present Syriac Christian hymns. We do not know how von Hornbostel met the singers, but he was interested in this music, perhaps also for comparative reasons. These few recordings are of great value today because they represent a musical tradition which can no longer be found.

It is of interest here that none of these early collections followed a recording strategy. We learn from the correspondence available that the collector ‒ upon the BPhA's request ‒ readily recorded what was offered to him. We may assume that neither Traeger nor Karutz had any knowledge of Tunisian music; their intention was to record as much as possible and cover a wide spectrum of music. Therefore, vocal and instrumental music are equally represented, as well as dance music, popular music, different genres, and music of different ethnic groups. However, recordings of "classical" Arab music are not presented.

The collection of Arab songs made by Walter Wreszinski in Egypt in 1909 is a special case. Walter Wreszinski (1880–1935) was an Egyptologist. He traveled to Egypt for an excavation trip in 1909 and, thereby, took the opportunity to make phonographic recordings for the BPhA. The recordings, all made in Cairo and recited by Abu Guma, are based on texts published in H. Schäfer's book "Die Lieder eines ägyptischen Bauern" (1903). Only seven out of 40 cylinders are independent of Schäfer's songs and freely improvised by the singer. Marius Schneider published an article on this collection in 1943 (Schneider 1943).

The Berlin collection of 13 cylinders recorded by Otto Cesar Artbauer in the mountains of the Cyrenaica (East Libya) in 1911 presents exclusively music recordings. The Austrian orientalist Otto Cesar Artbauer (1878–1916?) undertook several research trips to the countries of North Africa, whence he brought back music and voice recordings. While the spoken word recordings went to the Vienna Phonogrammarchiv, the music recordings found their way into the BPhA.

The two collections of Gottfried Buddensieg and Max von Oppenheim stem from Babylon (Buddensieg 1912) and Mesopotamia (Oppenheim 1913). Both collectors were involved in excavations there, Buddensieg as the government construction manager of the German Orient Society in Babylon and Max von Oppenheim as an orientalist and diplomat who was also devoted to archaeological research. Excavations obviously offered a good opportunity to make recordings in the archaeologists' free time. Buddensieg received 70 blank cylinders, but, unfortunately, only two cylinders labelled "Bedouin" music were sent back to Berlin (cf. Cholidis 2002).

The larger Oppenheim collection (30 cylinders) was recorded in 1913, but unfortunately it was given to the BPhA only later in 1930, at the instigation of Robert Lachmann. About half of the cylinders, also containing "Bedouin" music, had by then already disappeared. Since Max von Oppenheim was acknowledged as a fascinating figure and important collector, his wax cylinder collection has been presented several times at exhibitions in Cologne and Berlin (cf. Wegner 2001; Ziegler & Wegner 2011). Both collectors were closely associated with the Vorderasiatisches Museum in Berlin.4

The collection of Gotthelf Bergsträßer (1886–1933) poses some questions. Apparently, only part of a larger collection of cylinders was sent to Berlin and galvanized. The five cylinders in Berlin present Arabic songs recorded in Egypt. First preserved in the Institut für Semitistik in Munich, Bergsträßer's last place of work, the greater part of the collection are Arabic and Aramaic prose texts. The complete collection, comprising 110 cylinders recorded in 1914, 1917 and 1929/30, is now available in the Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (cf. Marx 2009). Hopefully, a future project will provide full digital access to these recordings.

Another special case is the collection of Arab recordings by the Königlich Preußische Phonographische Kommission in German prisoner-of-war camps between 1915 and 1918, most of them made in the so-called "Halfmoon Camp" in Wünsdorf near Berlin. About 95 of the about 1000 wax cylinders present Arab music:

The wax cylinder recordings correspond with records, mainly language recordings, made at the same time with the same people. They are provided with ample information and today form part of the Lautarchiv of Humboldt University.5

The second period 1919–1933

The second period, dating from 1919 until 1933, comprises 16 collections. This period was extraordinary fruitful, and one can see that a recording strategy was followed, initiated by Robert Lachmann, who recommended making recordings over a longer period, only in one place or one area. Lachmann was the main figure in the second period, and all the other collections are somehow connected with his activities. Not only the number of collections and cylinders made in this period is noteworthy, but also the number of publications based on the collections.

A curious case are the two collections recorded by Baron Rudolphe d'Erlanger, not only because of the unusual cylinder format, but also because of the unknown content. The cylinder format (dictaphone and concert cylinders) was not in use in the BPhA. Obviously d'Erlanger was in contact with Berlin, and he was interested in learning more about galvanizing and copying cylinders. Until today it has not been possible to produce hard wax copies from the galvanos sent to Berlin.6 Efforts were made to collaborate with the Centre de la musique arabe in Sidi Bou Said in Tunisia in the late 1990s, but results have not been yet available.

The BPhA became part of the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Berlin in 1922. Carl Stumpf, the founder of the archive, had meanwhile retired, and von Hornbostel continued "to fill the empty spaces in the world map of music" (Hornbostel 1933:41). He managed the archive part-time besides his obligations as a university professor. However, Hornbostel and Schünemann, who became vice-director of the Hochschule für Musik, had many conflicts, partly due to Hornbostel's weak health and frequent absences, but also due to the archive's financial situation (cf. Ziegler 1998).

Robert Lachmann was not a member of the BPhA but had held a position in the music department of the Staatsbibliothek in Berlin since 1927 and was renowned as the German specialist in Arab music. He gathered a group of interested scholars around him and was the driving force when the Gesellschaft zur Erforschung der Musik des Orients was founded in Berlin in 1930 (cf. Ziegler 2017). One of the members of this society was the Egyptian musicologist Mahmud El Hefny, who had studied in Berlin and graduated in 1930 with a dissertation on Ibn Sina's musical theory (El Hefny 1931). He was the organizer of the Conference on Arab music in Cairo in 1932 and used his Berlin contacts to invite his former German colleagues, including von Hornbostel and Lachmann to the conference. The collections of Helfritz, Berner, Schiffer, and Hickmann would not have been possible without Lachmann and El Hefny.

Lachmann recorded altogether nine collections, six quite comprehensive in different regions in North Africa, and he also recorded Arab musicians in Berlin (differentiating between recordings in the country "Libyen" [Libya] and the people "Libyer" [Libyans] recorded in Berlin). He undertook his first field research in North Africa in 1919 and these recordings formed the basis for his dissertation "Die Musik in den tunisischen Städten" (Lachmann 1923). In 1927 and 1929 he made further recording trips to North Africa. Based on these recordings and his experiences he published important works on Arabic music, namely, "Die Musik der aussereuropäischen Natur- und Kulturvölker" (1929), "Musik des Orients" (1929), and "Die Musik im Volksleben Nordafrikas" (1974), based on a lecture given in Berlin in 1932. The collection in Egypt in 1932 right after the Cairo conference is one of the most comprehensive and important collections of music from the Arab world in the BPhA. Unfortunately, for a long time very little information about this collection was available in Berlin, since Lachmann took the documents to Jerusalem when he emigrated in 1935.7

Hans Helfritz (1902–1995) studied at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin with Paul Hindemith and Erich von Hornbostel; he was also a composer.8 At von Hornbostel's suggestion, Helfritz recorded Arab music during his travels to Palestine, southern Arabia, and Hadhramaut, starting in 1930. I had the chance to invite him to the BPhA in 1994 and to inquire about details pertaining to his collections. Unfortunately, Helfritz could not remember exactly nor help to fill in the gaps in the documentation. Valuable documents connected with his recordings in Hadhramaut were destroyed during World War II, but information on the other two collections from "Palästina" and "Südarabien" are available. However, Helfritz was not very thorough in documenting, and thus, information is often missing and rather chaotic. Nonetheless, when reading his travel reports we learn many details about the recording situation, the singers, and Arab music in general (cf. Helfritz 1931, 1956, 1977). It is indeed a strenuous task to identify the Helfritz recordings, and this is only possible with the help of indigenous specialists.9

Alfred Berner (1910–2007) was a musicologist, who, in 1931, studied at the Institute of Arabic Music in Cairo for two years. In the first year of his stay in Egypt, he recorded traditional chants, songs, dhikr, and Coptic music, and he wrote a thesis entitled "Studien zur arabischen Musik auf Grund der gegenwärtigen Theorie und Praxis in Ägypten [Studies in Arabic Music Based on Contemporary Theory and Practice in Egypt]" (Berner 1937). Berner was El-Hefny's brother-in-law and obviously had good contacts in Egypt. He did not continue in ethnomusicology, but became director of the Musikinstrumentenmuseum in Berlin. His wax-cylinder collection is well-documented, and transcriptions and analyses are found in his dissertation.

Brigitte Schiffer (1909–1986) had already lived in Egypt before she went to study at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Berlin in 1929. She also attended lectures by von Hornbostel and Sachs at the university. In 1932, she traveled to Egypt for musicological studies and made phonographic recordings in the Siwa Oasis in 1933, together with Hans Hickmann, whom she married in 1935. Her doctoral thesis was published in 1936 (Schiffer 1936). Brigitte Schiffer's life and work has been investigated (Pasdzierny & Schmidt 2017) within a project at the Universität der Künste in Berlin (formerly the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik). One study on Schiffer as an ethnomusicologist also includes a closer look at her wax cylinder recordings (Ziegler 2017, see also Matthias Pasdzierny's article in this volume).

Hans Hickmann (1908–1968) also made recordings himself, recordings of songs with the lyra. Unfortunately, this collection has not yet been identified. Although dated 1935, it, of course, belongs to the second period. Hickmann settled in Cairo until 1957 and was devoted to the study of the history of music in Egypt.

The third period 1933–1945

Interestingly, only a few collections of Arab music were recorded in the third period (1933–1945) under Marius Schneider's directorship, partly due to the outbreak of World War II, but also for other reasons, financial problems, and probably a lack of interest in this region.

The Neuhart Warka recordings were made during the German Warka Expedition 1934–1935, in which Neuhart participated as a photographer and physician. The Zöhrer Tuareg recordings present music recorded by the Austrian scholar Ludwig Zöhrer. All recordings are also available in the Vienna Phonogrammarchiv, and a detailed study has been written by the Austrian scholar Franz Födermayr (1964). The collection "Archiv Algerien" was recorded in 1939 by M. Schneider, but the contents and other details are not known. Not a single collection is available in digital format yet.

Conclusion

Comparing the varied collections of music from the Arab world recorded between 1903 and 1939 we can distinguish considerable differences regarding the region, the material recorded, the intention of the collector, and the performers. Music from North Africa is well represented among the wax cylinder collections, the western part (Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco) is quite comprehensive and more diverse than the eastern part (Libya, Egypt). By contrast, there are only a few recordings from the Arabian Peninsula. Hans Helfritz was the only collector who travelled and recorded there, and as we know, sometimes under difficult and adventurous conditions. Recordings in Mesopotamia related to archaeological expeditions, where, obviously, the archaeological interest was the priority, whereas music and recording music were rather seen as a kind of evening entertainment.

The collectors of the first period were not specialists in music, but felt obliged to fulfil the archive's request to take a phonograph on their expeditions and make recordings. The latter were not made with a specific aim, but every kind of music that was found in the place was welcome. There was not a single musicologist among the collectors. By contrast, most of the collectors of the second period were (ethno-) musicologists, with Lachmann as the leading figure. He inspired several students of von Hornbostel to set off for Egypt and make recordings ‒ and they succeeded in writing their PhD dissertations based on this material (Berner, Schiffer). Another group of collectors were specialists in the Arabic language; they were interested mainly in the language and Arab culture, for example, Bergsträßer or von Oppenheim. It is interesting that several musicologists also studied Arabic, such as Lachmann, Berner, and Schiffer.

Recording music is always a chance to gain contact with indigenous people. Therefore, several researchers and travelers in Arab countries made recordings without great interest in the music itself, for example, Traeger, Karutz, Artbauer, or members of ethnological or archaeological expeditions, for example, von Oppenheim, Neuhart, Buddensieg, and Wreszinski. Hans Helfritz is a special case; he travelled independently, was interested in the music itself, and wrote down many interesting details. He also recorded the music of the Jewish population in Yemen, which are unique recordings.

We may note that music from the Arab world was understood as a corpus of examples, independent of the person who performed. However, the names of singers and musicians are given in some collections, following von Hornbostel's recommendation for field recordings of 1904 (Hornbostel 1904). Interestingly, there are many recordings of women and women's repertory, even in the earliest collections. A specific group among the performers were professional musicians, who were probably quite ready to play for the foreigners since their business was to play for the public.

The main interest of German collectors, and especially of musicologists, was in folk music: as Lachmann (1930) put it, "the music of the countryside". Religious music, especially the music of Christians, such as Copts or Syriac chants, were also recorded. Other early recordings may be classified as urban and dance music, and were often performed by women. Recordings of classical Arab music ‒ defined by Lachmann as urban music ‒ are rarely found. Classical Arab music tended to be played by professional ensembles, which were not easily accessed nor present everywhere. Moreover, the performances exceeded the capacity of a wax cylinder, and recording this type of music was left to commercial record companies. It is interesting to note that von Hornbostel's famous collection of records "Music of the Orient," edited by the Lindström record company, appeared in 1931 and included Arab classical music accompanied with texts by Robert Lachmann (Hornbostel 1931).

The examples of music from the Arab world on wax cylinders in the BPhA present a colorful picture. However, the picture is not complete at all, and the historical sound examples form only a small part of the music extant at the time. On the other hand, these examples testify to musical styles some of which no longer exist, and, therefore, are most valuable and should be studied and published.

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