Constantin Brăiloiu
Constantin Brăiloiu (13 August 1893 – 20 December 1958) was a Romanian composer and internationally known ethnomusicologist. • Illustration — Brăiloiu recording with phonograph He was born in Bucharest, the scion of an old boyar family from Oltenia. His father, Nicolae Brăiloiu, and his grandfather, Constantin N. Brăiloiu, were both lawyers and politicians. Brăiloiu studied in Bucharest (1901–1907), Vienna (1907–1909), Vevey and Lausanne (1909–1912), as well as Paris (1912–1914).
Also recorded as Constantin Brailoiu
Constantin Brăiloiu

Iosif Berman · National Geographic Romania · Public domain
- Born
- 1893 · Bucharest.
- Died
- 1958 · Geneva.
- Nationality
- Romania · Switzerland
- Occupation
- composer · musicologist · ethnomusicologist · music critic · ethnographer · university teacher
- Fields
- folkloristics · folk culture · musicology · traditional folk music
- Education
- Conservatory of Lausanne
- Languages
- French · Romani
VALÉORINE Encyclopedia
VALÉORINE documentary reading
Documentary summary
Constantin Brăiloiu (13 August 1893 – 20 December 1958) was a Romanian composer and internationally known ethnomusicologist. • Illustration — Brăiloiu recording with phonograph He was born in Bucharest, the scion of an old boyar family from Oltenia. His father, Nicolae Brăiloiu, and his grandfather, Constantin N. Brăiloiu, were both lawyers and politicians. Brăiloiu studied in Bucharest (1901–1907), Vienna (1907–1909), Vevey and Lausanne (1909–1912), as well as Paris (1912–1914).
Admitted source layer · organised and presented by VALÉORINE
Reference Check
Propose documentary evidence for Constantin Brăiloiu. A contribution is never written directly as fact: identity, source, rights and evidence gates still decide.
Sign in to contribute
World of VALÉORINE
Documentary connections
Only confirmed graph relationships appear here. Images are shown only when their identity and reuse rights both pass the documentary gate.
Documentary evidence
Documentary basis
Authority files
wikidata · Q677098 · wikipedia · Constantin Brăiloiu
In this article
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
The full dated record · 2 entries
1893
Constantin Brăiloiu born at Bucharest.
1958
Constantin Brăiloiu died at Geneva.
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
Bucharest.
Birth place
Geneva.
Death place
Writings
In 1920, he founded the Societatea Compozitorilor Români (SCR, Society of Romanian Composers) along with other composers, and he served as general secretary of the organization between 1926 and 1943. In 1928, he initiated the composer's collective Arhiva de folklore (folklore archive), which soon became one of the largest folk music archives of its time. From 1928 he and sociology professor Dimitrie Gusti visited the various regions of Romania in order to make sound recordings. In 1931, he published the article "Schița unei metode de folclor muzical" (Sketch of a method for music folklore), which became one of the foundational texts for ethnomusicology. In 1943, he became cultural consultant for the Romanian embassy in Bern. Due to the political incidents in his homeland he stayed from then on in Switzerland. In 1944, he organized another archive in Geneva, Les Archives internationales de musique populaire (AIMP), that was part of the Musée d'ethnographie de Genève (Geneva Museum of Ethnography). In particular, between 1951 and 1958 he released 40 volumes in the series Collection universelle de musique populaire enregistrée (Universal collection of recorded popular music) on 78 rpm records. In 1948, he became assistant professor (maître de conférence) at the CNRS in Paris. • Illustration — The Constantin Brăiloiu Ethnography and Folklore Institute of the Romanian Academy in Bucharest Brăiloiu was a corresponding member of the Romanian Academy from 1946. He died in Geneva of a stroke, at age 65. The Ethnography and Folklore Institute of the Romanian Academy now bears his name.
Constantin Brăiloiu studied at Conservatory of Lausanne. Emilia Comișel is recorded as having studied under Constantin Brăiloiu. The recorded working language is French and Romani. The field of work recorded is folkloristics, folk culture and musicology. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are traditional folk music.
• Schița unei metode de folclor muzical ("Esquisse d'une méthode de folklore musical"). In: Boabe de Grâu, Jg. 2, Nr. 4, 1931. • Sur une ballade roumaine: (la Mioritza). Kundig, Geneva 1946. • A propos du Jodel. In: Kongressbericht der Internationalen Gesellschaft für Musikwissenschaft, 4. Kongress, Basel 1949. Bärenreiter Verlag, Basel 1951, S. 69–71. • Le rythme aksak. Abbeville 1952. • Sur une mélodie russe. In: Pierre Souvtchinsky, Vladimir Fédorov, Gisèle Brelet (Hrsg.): Musique russe. Presses Universitaires de France, Paris 1953. • Le vers populaire roumain chanté. Ed. de l'Institut universitaire roumain Charles I, Paris 1956. • La rythmique enfantine: notions liminaires. Elsevier, Paris/Brussels 1956. • Folklore musical. Encyclopédie de la musique; Fasquelle, Paris 1959. • Réflexions sur la création musicale collective. In: Diogène. (Paris) Nr. 25, 1959, S. 83–93. • Vie musicale d'un village: recherches sur le répertoire de Dragus (Roumanie) 1929-1932. Institut universitaire roumain Charles Ier, Paris 1960. • Problèmes d'ethnomusicologie. Minkoff Reprint, Geneva 1973. (Collected works edited by Gilbert Rouget) • Problems of ethnomusicology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1984. (English translation by A.L. Lloyd of the collected works), digitally printed (Cambridge 2009) (hbk.), (pbk.) • Opere 1-5. Ed. Muzicală a Uniunii compozitorilor din Republica Socialistă România, Bucharest, vol. 1: 1967, vol. 2: 1969, vol. 3: 1974, vol. 4: 1979, vol. 5: 1981. (Collected works, translated and edited by Emilia Comișel) • Opere 6. Prima Parte. Editura Muzicală, Bucharest 1998. (with Emilia Comișel)

Drăguș, Țara Făgărașului (Transylvania, Romania), 1929. From left to right, seated: Henri H. Stahl, Constantin Brăiloiu, and Dimitrie Gusti.
Transilvania 118, nr. 11-12 (November 2012)
References
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
reference work
Secondary witnessreference work
Secondary witness
Further particulars
Held on the record
Further particulars
Open the remaining particulars
Formation and teaching. Brăiloiu studied at Conservatory of Lausanne. Each of those relationships is stated by the authority record rather than inferred from style. Brăiloiu worked in folkloristics, folk culture, musicology, traditional folk music and etnomusicology. He belonged to Romanian Academy. Recorded as composer, musicologist, ethnomusicologist, music critic and ethnographer.
Career and activity
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 14 August 2026.
Elsewhere in Music memorabilia
43,513 published records in this field, each with its sources named.
- Constance BachePerson
- Constance Faunt Le Roy RunciePerson
- Constant LambertPerson
- Constantin BakaleinikoffPerson
- Constantin Christian DedekindPerson
- Constantin RegameyPerson
- Constantin SilvestriPerson
- Constantin TrinksPerson
Best supported in this field
For owners
Own a work by Constantin Brăiloiu?
A specialist will read what you send and tell you what the house can establish, what it cannot, and whether the object is suited to sale. There is no charge and no obligation. The object stays with you throughout; nothing is shipped to us unless it is arranged in writing beforehand.