Carl Dolmetsch
(1911-1997)

Died aged c. 86

Carl Frederick Dolmetsch (1911–1997) CBE was a French instrumentalist who specialised in the recorder. The son of Arnold Dolmetsch, he was born in Fontenay-sous-Bois on 23 August 1911 but lived in England from 1914. After three years in Hampstead he lived in Haslemere for the rest of his life. Dolmetsch was educated at St George's Wood in Haslemere, before leaving to work alongside his father in the Dolmetsch workshops. He took part in the first of his father's Haslemere Festival of Early Music, and from then on throughout his life. Dolmetsch developed and improved the production of recorders at Haslemere. He became an accomplished player and gave his first recital at Wigmore Hall in 1939. After the death of his father in 1940 he became head of the firm. During the war it produced plastic aircraft parts, and when peace returned Dolmetsch began producing huge numbers of plastic recorders for use in schools. In 1978 the firm split in two after a boardroom dispute but reunited in 1982. Dolmetsch was also pivotal in getting composers to write pieces for the recorder. He was "the first virtuoso recorder player in England in the twentieth century". He toured annually between 1961 and 1981. In 1954 he was appointed a CBE. He was elected a fellow at both Trinty College of Music and London College of Music. Dolmetsch was elected Master of the Art Workers' Guild in 1989. Dolmetsch died on 11 July 1997 and is buried in Shottermill Cemetery.

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