Arnold Dolmetsch

French classical pianist, violinist, viol player, lute player, and harpsichord player

• Born: February 24, 1858
• Birthplace: Le Mans, France
• Died: February 28, 1940
• Place of death: Halsmere, Surrey, England

Dolmetsch was a performer, instrument maker, and musicologist, and one of the first advocates of the early music revival. Performers who use period instruments are indebted to Dolmetsch’s pioneering work in the restoration and reproduction of those artifacts.

The Life

Eugène Arnold Dolmetsch (DOHL-mehtch) was born in Le Mans, France, to a family of instrument-builders, and as a child he was trained first as a pianist, then as a violinist. He was a violin student at the Brussels Conservatory from 1881 to 1883 under Henri Vieuxtemps, and he later continued his studies at the newly founded Royal College of Music in London. He taught violin at Dulwich College from 1885 to 1889. Dolmetsch spent most of his life in England, though he worked as an instrument maker in Boston from 1905 to 1911 and in Paris from 1911 to 1914. After his stay in Paris, he returned to England. In 1917 he moved to Haslemere, Surrey, where, in 1920, he established an instrument workshop. In 1925 he and his family held the first Haslemere Festival, which lasted two weeks. Dolmetsch was married three times: to Marie Morel, then to Élodie Dolmetsch (his former sister-in-law), and finally to Mabel Johnston.

The Music

Dolmetsch’s career involved three interrelated projects: restoration and reproduction of old instruments; scholarship concerning music from the Renaissance and Baroque eras; and the performance of that music using the instruments he helped to revive.

Instrument Making. Dolmetsch first became interested in historical instruments while living in Brussels, where he attempted his earliest restorations, first of an old square piano and then of a viola d’amore. He later acquired and restored such instruments as a lute, a harpsichord, a clavichord, a recorder, a viola da gamba, and a violone, teaching himself (as well as his family members and students) to play the instruments. By 1893 he moved from restoring antique instruments to building reproductions. His activities and success as an instrument-builder coincided with the Arts and Crafts movement in England, a reaction against the factory- and machine-oriented products of the Industrial Revolution. The Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society had mounted exhibitions in London beginning in 1888, and it was at that event in 1896 that Dolmetsch displayed his first handmade harpsichord. He continued his instrument-making while employed by Chickering and Sons, the piano firm based in Boston, where he ran his own department dedicated to the reproduction of early instruments, and later by the Parisian firm of Gaveau, maker of pianos.

Scholarship. By the time Dolmetsch began his studies in London, the field of musicology had entered its nascent stages; indeed, Dolmetsch’s mentor at the Royal College, Sir George Grove, was among the most ambitious and prominent scholars of music, publishing the first edition of his dictionary of music in 1879. Early in his career Dolmetsch produced editions of trio sonatas by George Frideric Handel and Arcangelo Corelli, in which he realized the figured bass. In 1904 he published a series of articles in the art journal The Connoisseur: two on the lute and one on viols. Though not without inaccuracies, these articles were based on the author’s own research into and experience with early instruments, and they demonstrated a knowledge of historical treatises on the instruments and questions of performance. Dolmetsch’s most substantial scholarly publication, The Interpretation of the Music of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries Revealed by Contemporary Evidence, appeared in 1915, and it was reprinted twice later in the century. The volume was among the first to offer evidence from primary sources regarding performance practices of the Baroque era. The book treats the topic of ornamentation at great length, and it also contains sections on tempo, rhythmic alteration, figured bass, fingering, and historical instruments. Though Dolmetsch’s study is allied to the scholarly work of the period, its conclusion disdains impractical musicology, so wholly disconnected from performance, while simultaneously stating the author’s views on the necessity of reviving older performance traditions.

Performance. While a student in London, Dolmetsch began to explore the musical holdings of the British Museum and other libraries, where he discovered long-forgotten manuscripts and prints of Renaissance and Baroque sheet music. He frequently performed these works at gatherings in his home, and, starting in 1890, in public concerts; in these concerts he and his fellow performers used the period instruments he had restored or built. However, his most important performances were at the Haslemere Festival, where he, his family members, and his students presented concerts each evening; the daytime was taken up with displays and demonstrations of historical instruments. Because of the novelty of Dolmetsch’s undertakings, his performances displayed problems, especially imperfection of the instruments and playing techniques. Indeed, for Dolmetsch imperfect performances were no sign of musical weakness; most of the music he played was intended to be played by amateurs in private circles, and these were precisely the circumstances he tried to reproduce.

Musical Legacy

Dolmetsch’s impact has been felt more keenly since his death than it was during his life. Most performers and critics of his day exhibited little sympathy for his work in the fields of historical instruments and music. Dolmetsch was partly responsible for his rift with the musical mainstream, since he seems to have taken a somewhat accusatory stance toward the performers of his day. Nevertheless, after the first festivals at Haslemere, and especially in the 1930’s, musicians and the musical public were increasingly accepting of Dolmetsch’s ideas. In 1933 the composer Percy Grainger published an article commending Dolmetsch for his steady adherence to the British musical tradition, and an obituary in the Musical Times praised him as a “creative genius.” The Haslemere Festival and the workshop there continued under the guidance of Dolmetsch’s descendants and the Dolmetsch Foundation, established in 1929. In the late 1930’s Dolmetsch was honored by both the British government and the French government; the former granted him a civil list pension in 1937, and the latter made him Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur in 1939.

Principal Recordings

albums:Domenico Scarlatti: Pastorale from Sonata in D Minor No. 9, 1920 (harpsichord); G. F. Handel: The Harmonious Blacksmith, 1920 (harpsichord); J. S. Bach: Toccata in G Major, 1920 (harpsichord); Nowell’s Galliard/Tower Hill, 1920 (lute); Rameau: Fugue “La Forqueray” from the 5ième Concert/Le Cupis, 1921 (violin); Thomas Tompkins: Pavan in F for Five Violins, 1921 (violin); Columbia History of Music by Eye and Ear: Vol. 1, Part 10; Weelkes, Fantasy for a Chest of Six Viols, 1929 (viol); Columbia History of Music by Eye and Ear: Vol. 1, Part 11; Dowland, Awake Sweet Love, 1929 (lute); Columbia History of Music by Eye and Ear: Vol. 1, Part 12; Bach, Prelude and Fugue in B Flat, 1933 (piano); Columbia History of Music by Eye and Ear: Vol. 2, Part 11; Bach, Prelude and Fugue in C, 1933 (piano).

writings of interest:The Interpretation of the Music of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries Revealed by Contemporary Evidence, 1915.

Bibliography

Campbell, Margaret. “Arnold Dolmetsch.” In The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, edited by S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan, 2001. A concise and readable summary of Dolmetsch’s life and work.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Dolmetsch: The Man and His Work. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1975. An extensive biography of Dolmetsch, from the perspective of an approving author.

Dolmetsch, Arnold. The Interpretation of the Music of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries Revealed by Contemporary Evidence. London: Novello, 1969. Dolmetsch’s most important contribution to musical scholarship. Though many of his conclusions have been modified or corrected by later scholars, the work was pioneering in its attempt to understand the performance conventions of the Baroque era.

Grainger, Percy. “Arnold Dolmetsch: Musical Confucius.” Musical Quarterly 19 (1933): 187-98. This important twentieth century composer praises Dolmetsch for his advocacy of the British musical tradition.

Haskell, Harry. The Early Music Revival: A History. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover, 1996. An entertaining evaluation of the early music movement, with an informative chapter on Dolmetsch.