Mohamed Ben Teffahi

Mohammed Ben Teffahi , born with Algiers in 1870, belonged to a guardian family of old traditions and deeply practicing. He was the disciple of the Masters Abderrahmane Menemmeche, Ben Farachou and, especially, of Mohamed Sfindja of which he was a long time the faithful companion. Ben Teffahi was not, at that time, which one can call a devoted artist, but was a simple amateur having the passion of the music. Moreover, its social situation exempted it - as opposed to what was the case of large Masters - of living generosity of the men.

After successive death, in 1928 of the man of culture which was Muphti Mohammed Boukandoura, enthusiastic music lover, and of the Masters Mouzinou and Yafil, Mohammed Ben Teffahi, whose modesty and discretion were proverbial, was going to appear - whereas nothing intended it to play this part - a providential saver of a thousand-year-old musical inheritance in perdition.

Seizing the convenient occasion of the commemoration of the centenary of French colonization, enthusiastic music lovers wanted to affirm the Algerian cultural identity through one of its expressions and decided to found a musical association, freed from certain requirements of the colonial administration of the time, by entrusting some the presidency to Mohammed Ben Teffahi. Thus was born, on January 27th 1930, this association to which was given the name highly symbolic system of “ El Djazaïria ”, more known thereafter under that of “ El Djazaïria - El Mossilia ” following fusion, occurred on October 15th 1951 for a simple matter of room, associations “ El Djazaïria ” and “ El Mossilia ”.

At this point in time will appear the vast musical knowledge of Ben Teffahi that his pupils, among whom the brothers Mohammed Fakhardji and Abderrezak Fakhardji - whose notoriety will exceed the borders of the country later - Omar Bensemmane and Abdelkrim Mehamsadji, will assimilate and transmit, in their turn, the generations which will succeed to them.

Having married his daughter with Tlemcen, it often made a stay in this city where it bound with the Masters of the place, in particular Sheik Hadj Larbi Ben Sari and his Redouane son, which, with its contact, enriched their repertory substantially.

In an article published in 1981 and intended to make known Mohammed Ben Teffahi, the Master Sid Ahmed Serri had written that “the singers and Andalusian musicians of these last decades and the young people who, nowadays, initiate themselves with the classical music (Algerian) must, sometimes without the knowledge, most of their knowledge or their acquisitions in this field - they imperfect or “were adjusted” with the style of their area - so that Ben Teffahi bequeathed”.

It is during a visit returned to his/her daughter that he died in Tlemçen on April 19th 1944 and there was buried with the cemetery of Sidi Senoussi.

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