{ "date": [ { "century": [ "19" ], "role": [ { "value": "date of birth" } ], "earliest": 1858, "value": "24 February 1858", "latest": 1858 }, { "century": [ "20" ], "role": [ { "value": "date of death" } ], "earliest": 1940, "value": "28 February 1940", "latest": 1940 }, { "century": [ "19" ], "role": [ { "value": "life dates" } ], "earliest": 1858, "value": "24 February 1858 - 28 February 1940", "latest": 1940 }, { "century": [ "19" ], "role": [ { "value": "early life and training" } ], "description": [ { "value": "Arnold Dolmetsch came from a family of musician-craftsmen, learning piano-making with his father and organ and harmonium building from his maternal grandfather. He studied violin privately with composer-virtuoso Henry Vieuxtemps and later completed a rigorous conservatory training in Brussels (1881-1883). In 1883 he went to the then recently opened Royal College of Music in London where George Grove encouraged him to pursue his growing enthusiasm for early music." } ], "earliest": 1858, "value": "1858 \u2013 1893", "latest": 1893 }, { "century": [ "19" ], "role": [ { "value": "the first instruments" } ], "description": [ { "value": "Dolmetsch\u2019s collecting and restoration activities were triggered by a wish to perform, on original instruments, music for viol consort which he had uncovered in the Royal College and British Museum. Gradually, he began to make early instruments, his first being a lute in 1893 (Horniman Museum no M11-1983). Clavichords, harpsichords, recorders, viols and fortepianos followed over the following four decades. His first harpsichord, the green harpsichord (Horniman Museum no M72-1983), was made at the suggestion of William Morris for display at the Arts and Crafts exhibition of 1896. Dolmetsch\u2019s friends and supporters included some of the most eminent artists, musicians and literary figures of his time, including Edward Burne-Jones, W. B. Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, Ezra Pound and Hubert Parry. He even performed in the White House for the US president Theodore Roosevelt." } ], "earliest": 1893, "value": "1893 \u2013 1904", "latest": 1904 }, { "century": [ "20" ], "role": [ { "value": "america, france and britain" } ], "description": [ { "value": "Dolmetsch first made instruments on his kitchen table in a house in Dulwich, London, but his reputation in both performance and instrument manufacture eventually took him to the USA where he collaborated with the Boston piano makers, Chickering (1904-1911). Together with a hand-picked team, he made not only keyboard instruments, including clavichords, harpsichords and spinets, but also early stringed instruments such as violas da gamba. The 1910 economic downturn caused Chickering to close its early instruments division, whereupon Dolmetsch left America to initiate a similar venture with another piano maker, Gaveau, in Fontenay-sous-Bois outside Paris. This relationship proved less happy and relatively short-lived and he returned to live in London, this time in Hampstead, in 1914, where, in the following year, he completed and published his ground-breaking work, The Interpretation of the Music of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries." } ], "earliest": 1904, "value": "1904 \u2013 1917", "latest": 1917 }, { "century": [ "20" ], "role": [ { "value": "haslemere: performance, production and the early music festival" } ], "description": [ { "value": "The air raids of the First World War prompted Dolmetsch to seek a safer place where he and his family, now made up of his third wife Mabel and their four children, Cecile, Nathalie, Rudolph and Carl, could pursue both music making and instrument manufacture. Towards the end of 1917, they finally settled in a house called Jesses in Haslemere, Surrey, which remains in the Dolmetsch family to this day (2012). Dolmetsch\u2019s family played an integral role in all musical activities, including performance and instrument production. His youngest son, Carl (1911-1997), directed recorder production from 1926 and assumed leadership of the firm from 1940 until his death. The Haslemere Early Music Festival, first held in 1925, became an annual event in which early music could be heard on newly made or restored historic instruments. In essence, the house and workshop became a locus for study and performance attracting and training many of the musicians and craftsmen who would develop and advance the movement for authentic performance practice through the 20th and into the 21st centuries." } ], "earliest": 1917, "value": "1917 \u2013 1940", "latest": 1940 }, { "century": [ "20" ], "role": [ { "value": "dolmetsch and the horniman museum" } ], "description": [ { "value": "The Horniman Museum acquired its core Dolmetsch Collection, consisting of 131 instruments, in 1983 through grants, principally from the National Art Collections Fund. It includes significant or representative examples of Dolmetsch\u2019s own work and historic instruments which he studied, restored and\/or used as prototypes (e.g. Horniman Museum no M10-1983, recorder by Bressan). Many relationships exist between Dolmetsch instruments and the other musical collections held by the Horniman. For example, Dolonite recorders made by the Dolmetsch firm from 1945 to 1970, were produced and distributed in large numbers during the 1960s by Boosey & Hawkes. In 1987, Carl Dolmetsch gave the Horniman his firm\u2019s first treble and descant recorders to be fashioned from this resin-based Bakelite-like material (Horniman Museum nos M26-1987 and M27-1987). Conversely, a slide trumpet by Boosey & Co. (Horniman Museum no M40-1983) dating from 1886 forms part of the original Dolmetsch Collection. The Museum is still active in collecting instruments that complete the picture of Dolmetsch\u2019s working life and one of its new acquisitions is a clavichord of 1906\/1910 made by Dolmetsch during his association with Chickering." } ], "earliest": 1983, "value": "1983 \u2013 date", "latest": 1983 } ], "instructions": [ { "date": [ { "earliest": 2012, "value": "2012-02-16", "latest": 2012, "primary": true } ], "note": "Core Record", "author": "Van der Velden, Remke", "type": "CO" }, { "date": [ { "earliest": 2012, "value": "2012-02-16", "latest": 2012, "primary": true } ], "note": "Extended Record 1 DRAFT", "author": "Van der Velden, Remke", "type": "CO" }, { "date": [ { "earliest": 2012, "value": "2012-02-16", "latest": 2012, "primary": true } ], "note": "Extended Record 2", "author": "Van der Velden, Remke", "type": "CO" } ], "occupation": "instrument maker, violinist and collector", "projects": [ "CollectionsOnline02" ], "gender": { "value": "M" }, "admin": { "processed": 1742580115071, "sequence": 7526767, "uid": "hmc-agent-5148", "added": 1664636533777, "stream": "collections-online", "id": "agent-5148", "source": "hmc", "uuid": "e8e028a0-bde1-3f55-b71d-85212f3577a2" }, "description": [ { "type": "biography", "value": "Arnold Dolmetsch was a pioneer in the late 19th- and early 20th-century revival of interest in the study and performance of early music and the manufacture and restoration of historic musical instruments. \n\nDolmetsch came from a family of musician-craftsmen, and studied violin privately with composer-virtuoso Henry Vieuxtemps before receiving conservatory training in Brussels. In 1883 he went to the Royal College of Music in London where he pursued a growing enthusiasm for early music. Wishing to perform this on early instruments, he began to make his own, beginning with a lute in 1893 (Horniman Museum no M11-1983). Dolmetsch\u2019s friends and supporters included some of the most eminent artists, musicians and literary figures of his time, including Edward Burne-Jones, W. B. Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, Ezra Pound and Hubert Parry. He even performed in the White House for the US president Theodore Roosevelt.\n\nDolmetsch\u2019s growing reputation in both performance and instrument manufacture eventually took him to the USA where he collaborated with the Boston piano makers, Chickering (1904-1911), working on keyboard instruments, including clavichords, harpsichords and spinets, and early stringed instruments such as violas da gamba. When the 1910 economic downturn caused Chickering to close its early instruments division, he left America to work with another piano maker, Gaveau, in Fontenay-sous-Bois outside Paris. Returning to London in 1914, he completed and published his ground-breaking work, The Interpretation of the Music of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, the following year.\n\nDriven by the air raids of the First World War to seek a safer home for his family, now made up of his third wife Mabel and their four children, Cecile, Nathalie, Rudolph and Carl, Dolmetsch settled in a house called Jesses in Haslemere, Surrey, in 1971; it remains in the Dolmetsch family to this day (2019). Dolmetsch\u2019s family played an integral role in all musical activities, including performance and instrument production. The Haslemere Early Music Festival, first held in 1925, became an annual event in which early music could be heard on newly made or restored historic instruments. The house and workshop attracted and trained many of the musicians and craftsmen who went on to develop and advance the \u2018authentic performance\u2019 movement in the 20th and 21st centuries.\n\nThe Horniman Museum acquired its core Dolmetsch Collection, consisting of 131 instruments, in 1983 through grants, principally from the National Art Collections Fund. It includes significant or representative examples of Dolmetsch\u2019s own work and historic instruments which he studied, restored and\/or used as prototypes: for example a recorder by Bressan (Horniman Museum no M10-1983) and his first harpsichord, the \u2018green harpsichord\u2019 (Horniman Museum no M72-1983), made at the suggestion of William Morris for display at the Arts and Crafts exhibition of 1896. The Museum is still active in collecting instruments that complete the picture of Dolmetsch\u2019s working life and one of its new acquisitions is a clavichord of 1906\/1910 made by Dolmetsch during his association with Chickering." }, { "type": "brief biography", "value": "instrument maker, violinist and collector (1858 - 1940)" } ], "historical": true, "type": { "type": "person", "base": "agent" }, "agents": [ { "@link": { "role": [ { "value": "father of" } ], "type": "reference" }, "summary_title": "Dolmetsch, Carl Frederick", "admin": { "uid": "hmc-agent-622", "id": "agent-622", "uuid": "76a65759-780b-3b7e-bc63-92e970d5731b" } } ], "lifecycle": { "death": [ { "date": { "earliest": 1940, "value": "28 February 1940", "latest": 1940 }, "places": { "@link": { "type": "literal" }, "name": [ { "value": "Haslemere, Surrey, England, UK, Western Europe, Europe" } ] } } ], "birth": [ { "date": { "earliest": 1858, "value": "24 February 1858", "latest": 1858 }, "places": { "@link": { "type": "literal" }, "name": [ { "value": "Le Mans, Sarthe, Pays de la Loire, France, Western Europe, Europe" } ] } } ] }, "nationality": [ "Swiss" ], "contact": { "institution": [ { "@link": { "type": "literal" } } ], "places": { "address": [ "Jesses", "Grayswood Road" ] }, "city": [ { "@link": { "type": "literal" }, "name": [ { "value": "Haslemere" } ] } ], "name": [ { "value": "Dolmetsch, Eug\u00e8ne Arnold" } ], "department": [ { "@link": { "type": "literal" } } ], "type": "home" }, "summary_title": "Dolmetsch, Eug\u00e8ne Arnold", "name": [ { "last": "Dolmetsch", "type": "preferred name", "value": "Dolmetsch, (Eug\u00e8ne) Arnold", "first": [ "Eug\u00e8ne Arnold" ], "primary": true }, { "type": "transposed order", "value": "Dolmetsch, Arnold" }, { "type": "transposed order", "value": "Dolmetsch, A." }, { "type": "transposed order", "value": "Dolmetsch, Eugene" }, { "type": "transposed order", "value": "Dolmetsch, Eugene Arnold" }, { "type": "transposed order", "value": "Dolmetsch, E. A." }, { "type": "transposed order", "value": "Dolmetsch, (Eugene) Arnold" }, { "type": "transposed order", "value": "Dolmetsch, Eugene, Arnold" }, { "type": "transposed order", "value": "Dolmetsch, (Eug\u00e8ne) Arnold" }, { "type": "natural order", "value": "(Eug\u00e8ne) Arnold Dolmetsch" } ], "options": { "flag2": "N", "flag1": "N", "option1": "CollectionsOnline02", "sort_name": "DOLMETSCH, EUGENE ARNOLD" }, "events": [ { "@link": { "role": [ { "value": "founder" } ], "attribution": { "attributor": "Documentation Section" }, "type": "reference" }, "summary_title": "Haslemere Festival", "admin": { "uid": "hmc-event-21", "id": "event-21", "uuid": "5c445549-9202-347b-903a-4d74508945d4" }, "sort": "01" } ] }