Robert Lachmann a German ethnomusicologist

Ethnomusicology

Ethnomusicology is defined as "the study of social and cultural aspects of music and dance in local and global contexts."Coined by the musician Jaap Kunst from the Greek words ἔθνος ethnos and μουσική mousike , it is often considered the anthropology or ethnography of music...

, linguist (German English, French), musicologist, orientalist and library official. Expert in the music of the Orient

Orient

The Orient means "the East." It is a traditional designation for anything that belongs to the Eastern world or the Far East, in relation to Europe. In English it is a metonym that means various parts of Asia.- Derivation :...

, a member of the Berlin School of Comparative Musicology and one of its founding fathers.

Robert Lachmann arrived to Palestine

Palestine

Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....

 in April 1935, after he had been dismissed from his position at the Berlin National Library, following the Nazis' rise to power. He came to Jerusalem at the invitation of Judah L. Magnes

Judah Leon Magnes

Judah Leon Magnes was a prominent Reform rabbi in both the United States and Palestine. He is best remembered as a leader pacifist movement of the World War I period and as one of the most widely recognized voices of 20th Century American Reform Judaism.-Biography:He was born in San Francisco,...

, chancellor and later president (1935–1948) of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Hebrew University of Jerusalem

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem ; ; abbreviated HUJI) is Israel's second-oldest university, after the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The Hebrew University has three campuses in Jerusalem and one in Rehovot. The world's largest Jewish studies library is located on its Edmond J...

 to establish a center of Oriental music and the "Archive for Oriental Music".

He participated in the 1932 Cairo Congress of Arab Music

Cairo Congress of Arab Music

The Congrès du Caire was a large international symposium and festival convened in Cairo from March 14 to April 3, 1932 by King Fuad I...

.

Literary works

• Die Musik in den tunisischen Staedten, 1922
• the only editor of the "Zeitschrift fuer vergleichende Musikwissenschaft"( The Journal of Comparative Musicology), 1933-35 (Gesellschaft zur Erforschung des Musik des Orients - The Society for the Study of Oriental Music, from 1930-)
• Musik des Orients, 1929