Cohen, Judith

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Ruth  Katz,  "The  Lachmann  Problem":  An  Unsung  Chapter  in Comparative  Musicology.  Jerusalem:  The  Hebrew  University  Magnes  Press, 2003 (The Jewish Music Research Centre in collaboration with the Jewish National and University Library)  Robert Lachmann (Berlin 1892 - Jerusalem 1939) was one of many Jewish  musicologists who were driven out from Germany in order to preserve the racial purity of that "Most German of the Arts."1 Instead of being "Driven into Paradise,"2 he sought a new homeland in Palestine. Lachmann, whose first encounter with North African music occurred during his service as an interpreter in a prisoners-of-war camp in Germany during World War I, studied ethnomusicology at Berlin University under Johannes  Wolf  and  Carl  Stumpf.  He  took  his  doctorate  there  in  1922  with  a dissertation  on  urban  music  in  Tunisia,  based  on  his  own  recordings  and transcriptions.  In  1927  he  was  appointed  librarian  at  the  music  department  of  the Berlin Staatsbibliothek, and he made several recording expeditions to North Africa. At his initiative, the Gesellschaft zur Erforschung der Musik des Orients was founded in 1930, and he edited its quarterly journal from 1933 to 1935, when it ceased its existence. As the appointed chairman of the recording committee of the International Congress of Arab Music (Cairo, 1932), he selected and recorded performances of the best Arab musicians from Morocco to Iraq. One year later, on the threshold of a rising international career, he received a dry and laconic letter from the Prussian Ministry of Science, Art, and National Education announcing his "retirement" (at the age of 53!). Ruth  Katz's  book,  based  on  documents  in  the  Lachmann  File  in  the  Hebrew University's  archive  and  his  personal  files  in  the  Jewish  National  and  University Library, reconstructs, documents, and interprets, with empathy and with historical and psychological  insight,  Lachmann's  accommodation  to  his  new  situation,  and  his endeavors to transfer his scholarly work to Palestine and to the young university in Jerusalem. His predicament, she claims, was triple: (1) his profession – musicology, let alone "Oriental and non-European Music" –  was not one of the academic priorities of the new University and was considered a luxury; (2) he had migrated to an alien culture, and  despite the vast research opportunities that Palestine, with its wealth of music cultures, offered him he remained "a foreigner in a new land " (p. 164); (3) he had  to  "missionize  for  his  profession  …  in  an  impossible  organizational  context" (p.16) – that of the Hebrew University,  which was not only "short of money, space, [and] equipment" (p. 127), but also entangled in bureaucratic, academic and personal intrigues. His persistent efforts to establish a center for the study of oriental music at the Hebrew University was supported – wholeheartedly, but to no avail - by J. L. Magnes,  the  University's  first  chancellor,  who  was  an  ardent  believer  in  the coexistence of Jews and Arabs in Palestine.  Lachmann's untiring though polite and soft-spoken fight to convince the University's authorities of the importance of his work gained him the doubtful status of a "case". His untimely death in 1939 put an end both to the "Lachmann problem" and to this "unsung  chapter"  in  the  history  of  ethno-musicological  research  in  Palestine.  In                                                   1 Pamela M. Potter, Most German of the Arts: Musicology and Society from the Weimar Republic to the End of Hitler's Reich. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998. 2￿ As implied by Reinhold Brinkmann and Christoph Wolff, eds., in Driven into Paradise: The Musical Migration from Nazi Germany to the United States. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.  chapter IV of her book, Ruth Katz tries to interpret his death in terms of a religious drama: was he a tragic hero, "ousted by those who deformed the world he loved and respected" but remaining "inexorably drawn to its cultural attainments" (p. 274)? Did he  die  a  "Liebestod"  of  one  having  transmuted  "into  a  new  spirituality  with  self-destruction as its highest rapture" (p. 277)? Fittingly, the questions are left open. I would prefer the author's sober interpretation in her previous paper on Lachmann: "It is  a  story  of  a  vision  that  crashed  in  the  face  of  a  sad  reality,  where  day-to-day practicality overpowered deliberate policy."3  "The book virtually begs for dramatic form", claims Ruth Katz (p. 6), and divides it into a prologue, three acts, and an epilogue – all of which are dedicated to Lachmann's life  story,  interpreted  against  the  background  of  his  time  and  the  history  of  his scholarly discipline. Following the author's play with metaphors, one is tempted to conceive the book as constructed according to the rule of the 'golden section': Its third part reproduces selected documents, letters and lectures of Lachmann. Among them are delightful and illuminating letters he sent to his parents from his professional trip to Egypt in 1932, and a group of introductory lectures on "The Music of the East".  Twelve  of  these  lectures  were  broadcast  in  1936-37  on  the  newly-born  Palestine Broadcasting Station (a CD with musical examples is attached to the book), and four  were  delivered  at  the  "International  Association  of  University  Women,  Palestine Branch" –  an organization one would like to know more about. Apart from their intrinsic value, they also attest to Lachmann's erudition and born pedagogical talent. Of no less interest are his annual reports for 1935-36 and April 1937 (pp. 138- 47 and 182-86  respectively)  that  provide  fascinating  insight  into  the  history  of ethnomusicology. All these certainly contradict Dieter Christensen's implication that Lachmann's interest in non-Western music was but "a serious hobby." 4 Unfortunately, the book lacks an index, and thus many interesting details may evade the reader. There are also a few editorial problems, such as an inconsistent spelling of names (e.g., should it be Prof. Mayer, as on p. 181, n.78, or Meir as on p.81, n.52?), and lack of identification of persons in some cases versus redundancy in others (e.g., n. 97 and p. 210). A somewhat didactic tone used by the author in her eagerness to direct the reader's attention to certain facts and interpretations (e.g., "note that," "don't overlook that," "please pay attention," etc) is apparent in the first section of the book but fortunately disappears later on. However, these are details that do not mar the whole picture. Seldom will a collection of letters and documents read if not as a drama then as a historical-psychological novel. It is an achievement on the part of Ruth Katz to have selected the materials, commented on them and put them into the context of time and place. This book is an important contribution not only to the history of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, but also to the history of Comparative Musicology and to the story of the uprooted German-Jewish  musicologists  who  had  to  adapt  to  new  conditions  and  goals  (cf. especially the letters of Curt Sachs and Manfred Bukofzer, pp. 244-49).                                                     3￿Ruth Katz and Jenny Oizert-Levin, "A Missed Opportunity: Robert Lachmann and the Beginning of Ethnomusicological Research at the Hebrew University", in Shaul Katz and Michael Heyd, eds., The History of the Hebrew University (Jerusalem: The Hebrew University 1997), pp. 646-54. (In Hebrew) 4 Dieter Christensen, "Carl Stumpf and the Institutionalization of Comparative Musicology", in Bruno Nettl and Philip V. Bohlman, eds., Comparative Musicology and Anthropology of Music: Essays in the History of Ethnomusicology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1991), p. 208, n. 13.  Lachmann's archives contain many additional documents that should be explored. We learn  from  the  author  that  his  book  on  the  music  of  the  Berbers  still  awaits publication, and that she hopes to dedicate a special study to Erich von Hornbostel, on the basis of 92 hitherto unknown letters in the Lachmann files.   The "Unsung Chapter" of the life and work of Robert Lachmann, now that it has begun to make itself heard, should be continued. Judith Cohen          

[Rezension zu:] Ruth Katz, "The Lachmann problem" : an unsung chapter in comparative musicology. Jerusalem: The Hebrew University Magnes Press,  2003 (The Jewish Music Research Centre in collaboration with the Jewish Nationaland University Library)

[Rezension zu:] Ruth Katz, "The Lachmann problem" : an unsung chapter in comparative musicology. Jerusalem: The Hebrew University Magnes Press, 2003 (The Jewish Music Research Centre in collaboration with the Jewish Nationaland University Library)

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