Carl interpreting

Carl Frederic Dolmetsch (born August 23, 1911 in Fontenay-sous-Bois , † July 11, 1997 in Haslemere ) was an English recorder player.

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Dolmetsch grew up in a family of musicians. His father Arnold Dolmetsch was a trained musician and instrument maker and a pioneer of historical performance practice in England. His sisters Cecile and Natalie played the viol, his brother Rudolph played the viol as well as the clavichord and was active as a conductor and composer.

Interpreting was first taught by his father and then studied flute with Carl Flesch and Antonio Brosa . He also mastered all the instruments in the violin family. In 1925 he performed at the first Haslemere Early Music Festival , founded that year by his father. In the following years he became the internationally best known recorder virtuoso and was nicknamed Mr. Recorder . In 1932 he met the pianist Joseph Saxby , who was his piano accompanist for sixty years. In addition to early music and works included contemporary composers such as Lennox Berkeley , York Bowen , Herbert Murrill , Arnold Cooke , Cyril Scott , Francis Chagrin , Hans Gál , Gordon Jacob , Walter Leigh , Nicholas Maw , Stephen Dodgson , Jean Françaix and Edmund Rubbra to Dolmetschs Repertoire.

After his father's death in 1940, he took over the management of the Haslemere Festival, which he handed over to his daughter Jeanne Dolmetsch shortly before his death in 1996 . He won musicians like the oboist Leon Goossens , the singer Elizabeth Harwood , the pianist Ruth Dyson , the lutenist Robert Spencer and the violinist Rachel Podger for the festival . In 1937 he founded the Society of Recorder Players with Edgar Hunt , of which he became the first musical director. In 1939 he gave the first of 45 annual concerts with Saxby at Wigmore Hall .

In 1948 he founded the Dolmetsch International Summer School for young instrumentalists, of which he was director until 1997. Since 1926, Dolmetsch was responsible for recorder production in his father's instrument making company. For his invention of the plastic recorder for music lessons, he was named Commander of the British Empire in 1954 . From 1963 he took over the management of the family business, which he held until his death.

In 1960 the University of Exeter awarded interpreting an honorary doctorate . The Trinity College of Music and the London College of Music elected him an honorary member. The Art Workers Guild , of which he was a member, named him a master in 1989. His son François Dolmetsch initially embarked on a career as a photographer, but then returned to music and worked as a conductor in Colombia, his daughter Marguerite , Jeanne's twin sister, played viol and recorder. His youngest son Richard, who won the gold medal at La Royaume de Musique in Paris in 1961 , died in 1966 at the age of 21.

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• interpreting online - Carl F. Dolmetsch
• Shelagh Godwin: Obituary: Carl Dolmetsch . In: The Independent of July 14, 1997.
• Society of Recorder Players Dr. Carl Dolmetsch - Obituary
• Allmusic - discography