Arnold Dolmetsch

Eugène Arnold Dolmetsch (24 February 185828 February 1940) was a French-born musician and instrument maker who spent much of his working life in England and established an instrument-making workshop in Haslemere, Surrey. With his family, he was a leading figure in the 20th-century revival of interest in early music.

Early life

The Dolmetsch family was originally of Bohemian origin, but Dolmetsch was born in Le Mans, on 24 February 1858, the son of Rudolph Arnold Dolmetsch and his wife Marie Zélie (née Guillouard), where the family had established a piano-making business. It was in the family's workshops that Dolmetsch acquired the skills of instrument-making that would later be put to use in his early music workshops.

He studied music at the Brussels Conservatoire and learnt the violin with Henri Vieuxtemps. In 1883, he travelled to London to attend the Royal College of Music, where he studied under Henry Holmes and Frederick Bridge and was awarded a Bachelor of Music degree in 1889.

The early music revival

Instruments built and restored by Dolmetsch in the Horniman museum, London, UK. Dolmetsch was employed for a short time as a music teacher at Dulwich College, but his interest in early instruments was awakened by seeing the collections of historic instruments in the British Museum. After constructing his first reproduction of a lute in 1893, he began building keyboard instruments. William Morris encouraged him to build his first harpsichord which was exhibited in the Arts and Crafts exhibition of 1896. In 1900, he conducted the orchestra at Carpenter’s Hall playing 17th century instruments in a revival of the First Quarto version of Hamlet by the Elizabethan Stage Society. He left England to build clavichords and harpsichords for Chickering of Boston (1905–1911), then for Gaveau of Paris (1911–1914).

During Dolmetsch's time at Chickering, he resided in a house in Cambridge, Massachusetts, partially of his own design, with the aid of architects Luquer and Godfrey. It was through Dolmetsch's work in Cambridge that a wealthy benefactress, Miss Belle Skinner, was able to restore a number of rare instruments, including a spinet owned by Marie Antoinette, which today comprise the founding collection of Yale's Collection of Musical Instruments.

He went on to establish an instrument-making workshop in Haslemere, Surrey, and proceeded to build copies of almost every kind of instrument dating from the 15th to 18th centuries, including viols, lutes, recorders and a range of keyboard instruments. His 1915 book The Interpretation of the Music of the XVIIth and XVIIIth Centuries was a milestone in the development of 'authentic performances' of early music.

Dolmetsch settled in Dulwich (at 'Dowlands', 172 Rosendale Road) and was active in the cultural life of London. His friends and admirers included William Morris, Selwyn Image, Roger Fry, Gabriele D'Annunzio, George Bernard Shaw, Marco Pallis, Ezra Pound, George Moore, whose novel Evelyn Innes celebrates Dolmetsch's life and work, and W. B. Yeats. Cécile Dolmetsch (1904–1997), his second daughter, was a soprano and specialist of the pardessus de viole. Nathalie Dolmetsch (31 July 190514 February 1989), his third daughter, was born in Chicago to Dolmetsch and his wife Mabel. Nathalie continued her mother's tradition of early dancing and specialised in playing the viola de gamba. She founded the Viola da Gamba Society in 1948 and edited music and wrote on the viols. Her publications include Twelve Lessons on the Viola da Gamba, with Advice by Christopher Simpson (1659), Thomas Mace (1676), Marin Marais (1686), Jean Rousseau (1687), and Hubert Le Blanc (1740) (Schott & Co., London, 1950), and The Viola da Gamba: its Origin and History, its Technique and Musical Resources (Hinrichsen, London, 1962, Hinrichsen No. 759). Rudolph Dolmetsch (1906–1942), his first son, was a gifted keyboard player, gamba player, and composer, who died in the sinking of the SS Ceramic in 1942. His Concerto for clarinet, harp and orchestra (1939) was revived and recorded in 2019. Carl Dolmetsch (1911–1997), his second son, was a noted recorder player and took over his father's instrument-making business.

Family tree

Friedrich Dolmetsch (1782–1861), Swiss composer Frédéric (Frederik) Dolmetsch (1814–1892), director of municipal orchestra in Nantes, arranger and composer Arnold Rudolf Dolmetsch (1827–1874), piano maker, married Marie Zélie Guillouard Arnold Dolmetsch (1858–1940), instrument maker in England, married pianist Marie Morel (1848–1916), Elodie Desirée Franche Lelong (1869–1926) and bass viol player Mabel Johnstone (1874–1963) Hélène Dolmetsch (1878–1924), daughter of Marie, viola da gamba and cello player Cécile Dolmetsch (1904-1997), daughter of Mabel, pardessus de viole player Nathalie Dolmetsch (1905–1989), daughter of Mabel, performer, editor, founder Viola da Gamba Society Rudolph Dolmetsch (1906–1942), son of Mabel, keyboard player, gamba player and composer Carl Dolmetsch (1911–1997), son of Mabel, recorder player and instrument maker Jeanne-Marie Dolmetsch (1942–2018), violinist, pianist, teacher, editor Marguerite Mabel Dolmetsch (born 1942), younger twin sister of Jeanne-Marie, recorder and viol performer and teacher Richard Arnold Dolmetsch (1945–1966), recorder player Edgard Dolmetsch (1864–1904), married Elodie Desirée Franche Lelong, who later became the second wife of Arnold Dolmetsch

Books and writings

"The Interpretation of Music From The 17th and 18th Centuries" (1915/1946) "Select English songs and dialogues of the 16th and 17th centuries" (1954) "The Viols," The Consort (1982): 467–471.