Le Mystère de Marcel Cellier

Transfer Processes in Early World Music

Authors

  • Britta Sweers University of Bern

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/jwpm.v2i2.26750

Keywords:

Constantin Brǎiloiu, A.L. Lloyd, Alan Lomax, Disque Cellier, Marcel Cellier, Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares, Gheorghe Zamfir, authenticity

Abstract

Marcel Cellier (1925–2013) played a key role in early world music due to his influential recordings of Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares choirs and of the Romanian pan-flutist Gheorghe Zamfir. As Cellier remained a “footnote” in scholarly literature, the article first provides a biographical sketch, before casting a look at the history of world music before the term was established in 1987. Cellier’s work was significant in providing access to Eastern European music during the Cold War. As will be discussed in the third part of the article, this transfer process was not only intertwined with specific and differently perceived concepts of “authenticity”, it was also tied to a specific mediatized situation.

Author Biography

  • Britta Sweers, University of Bern

    Britta Sweers is Professor of Cultural Anthropology of Music at the Institute of Musicology and Director of the Center of Global Studies at the University of Bern (Switzerland). Having studied at Hamburg University and Indiana University (Bloomington), she was Junior Professor at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater, Rostock (Germany), from 2003–2009.

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Published

2018-11-05

Issue

Section

World Music

How to Cite

Sweers, B. (2018). Le Mystère de Marcel Cellier: Transfer Processes in Early World Music. Journal of World Popular Music, 2(2), 156-179. https://doi.org/10.1558/jwpm.v2i2.26750