The author of this volume, Robert Lachmann (November 28, 1892, in Berlin; May 8, 1939, in Jerusalem), was a German music ethnologist, librarian, and Orientalist. He was one of the co-founders of the Berlin School of Comparative Musicology. During World War I, he served as an interpreter in a prisoner-of-war camp with soldiers from Africa. From 1927 to 1933, he worked in the music department of the Prussian State Library and undertook research trips to the Near East during this time. In 1929, he studied the music of the Arabized Muslim Berbers and the local Jewish community on the Tunisian island of Djerba. After the rise of the Nazis, Lachmann, who was of Jewish descent, lost his position at the Prussian State Library and eventually emigrated to Palestine in April 1935. He accepted a position at the invitation of Judah Leon Magnes.