Etude complémentaire de manuscrits des transcriptions et des enregistrements sonores algériens de Béla Bartók

Abstract

When travelling in and around Biskra, Algeria, in 1913, Béla Bartók recorded almost two hundred melodies on phonograph cylinders. Bartók’s unique research was the subject of my PhD dissertation at the Sorbonne in Paris in 2003. The dissertation was based on about half of Bartók’s Arab collection available at the time at the Budapest Bartók Archives. In the meantime in 2006, the CD-ROM Bartók and Arab Folk Music has made for the first time available all the surviving transcriptions and sound recordings, which represent Bartók’s collection almost in its entirety. The article summarizes new research into the source material which has recently become available and points out the special significance of his study of Arab folk music for ethnomusicological research into the Maghreb.