Mohamed Iguerbouchène

Mohamed Iguerbouchène was the eldest of eleven children born to Saïd ben Ali and Sik Fatma bent Areski. He attended an English primary school in Algiers. It was here he was spotted in a music class by Bernard Fraser (later Bernard Fraser Ross), a wealthy homosexual Scottish bachelor, who spent winters in Algiers, and had served eight years in prison as a procurer for Lord Battersea and other aristocrats.[1] Ross convinced Iguerbouchène's parents to allow him to take the boy to England for his musical education.

Due to Fraser Ross's reputation, Iguerbouchène was likely privately educated. He later lied about his early years: claims that he studied at a Norton College, the Royal Academy of Music, the Royal College of Music, or even one of the predecessors of the Royal Northern College of Music, and under Robert Fischhof and Alfred Grünfeld have proven to be false.[2] However, he was certainly a musical prodigy. Early works included Kabylia Rapsodie n. 9 and Arabic rapsodie n. 7.

With the death of Fraser Ross in 1929, Iguerbouchène inherited all his property in Algeria. The will also specified a conditional bequest of 1,500 pounds on him not marrying a girl of European birth.[3] Iguerbouchéne met Fraser Ross's wish half-way, marrying a French citizen of Algeria, Louise Gomez. The marriage failed, although they did not divorce.[4]

In 1934, Iguerbouchène was introduced to the Société des auteurs, compositeurs et éditeurs de musique (SACEM) as a songwriter, and in that same year he was also introduced as a member of the Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques (SACD). In France, at the école normale des langues orientales de Paris, he studied Tamahaq, Tachawit and Tashelhit.[5]

In the early 1930s, Iguerbouchène composed the music for a number of Algerian documentaries and a short film (Dzair). This led to Julien Duvivier asking him to collaborate with Vincent Scottoon the soundtrack of the 1937 feature film Pépé le Moko starring Jean Gabin. He was credited as "Mohamed Ygerbuchen". The film was remade in 1938 in Hollywood as Algiers, and again used his music: this time he was credited as ‘Mohammed Igarbouchen’.

In the 1930s also Iguerbouchène became the co-proprietor of a bar-restaurant and cabaret, ‘El Djazaïr’ (‘Algiers’ in Arabic), on the rue de la Huchette in the Latin Quarter of Paris. In 1938, he met the singer Salim Halali in Paris (who was originally from Annaba), with whom he composed approximately fifty songs, mainly in an Arabic Flamenco style. The collaboration was successful in Parisian clubs, and they also toured the rest of Europe. They were in particularly popular in North Africa.

Following Iguerbouchène's approach to the BBC, in 1939 it broadcast one of his orchestral works, a 'Moorish Rhapsody', which was conducted by Charles Brill.[6]

During World War II, Iguerbouchène was a Nazi collaborator, managing the musical direction of the regime's Paris Mondial propaganda broadcasts targeting North Africa. He also began a relationship with a German-Belgian, Iwane 'Yvonne' Vom Dorp, with whom he had five illegitimate children. She would eventually leave him.[7] At the closure of the War he was not prosecuted for treason by the French government due to the protection of a high official.”[8]

In early 1945, Iguerbouchène composed about 100 songs based on poems in Thousands Nights by Rabindranath Tagore. In 1946, he composed music for Les plongeurs du désert by Tahar Hannache.[9] Iguerbouchène also composed for the 1962 French short Le songe de chevaux sauvages, directed by Albert Lamorisse about wild horses in France.

In 1957, Iguerbouchène returned to Algeria, where he worked for Algerian radio, and composed and conducted for the orchestra of the Opera of Algiers. However, following the Algerian War of Independence, and the subsequent official policy of arabisation, as someone strongly identified with France, and also as a Kabyle, he found himself marginalised. Ignored and embittered, he died of diabetes in Algiers in obscurity.[10] Recent years have witnessed attempts to rehabilitate and revive his works, and forge him into a national icon.

• Jordaan, Peter A Secret Between Gentlemen: Lord Battersea's hidden scandal and the lives it changed forever., Alchemie Books, 2022.
• Katz, Ethan B.The Burdens of Brotherhood: Jews and Muslims from North African to France, Harvard University Press, Harvard, 2015.
• Ounnoughene, Mouloud Mohamed Iguerbouchène: Un Oeuvre Intemporelle, Dar Khettab, Algiers, 2015.

• Mohamed Iguerbouchène at IMDb
• The Criterion Collection page
• Mubi page
• The Med-Mem Project 1988 documentary from EPTV