DOLMETSCH, ARNOLD (1858-194o), French musician, was born at Le Mans in 1858. He studied under Vieuxtemps in Brussels and later at the Royal College of Music in London. His keen interest in old music and obsolete instruments took the practical form of research among the manuscripts in the British Museum and other collections on the one hand and of collecting and repairing the instruments themselves on the other. To re construct new instruments on the lines of the old was the next step, and to this end he worked from 1902 to 1909 at the Chicken ing factory in Boston, U.S.A., and from 1911 to 1914 at the Gavaud factory in Paris. In 1914 he returned to London, where he became a familiar figure in the musical world by virtue of his interesting revivals of early English music and his ingenious re constructions of harpsichords and clavichords. He maintained a workshop at Haslemere in Surrey, where he also organized annual festivals of old chamber music of the i6th, 17th and i8th cen turies. On these occasions the fortnight's programmes were carried through, with but little outside assistance, by Dolmetsch and his family, the members of which he had trained to take their parts in a concert of viols or recorders or in any combination of instru ments. These concerts continued until his death.
Among Dolmetsch's published works are: Select English Songs and Dialogues of the XVI. and XVII. Centuries and The Interpretation of the ?Music of the XVI. and XVII. Centuries (1915).