Dolmetsch, Carl (Frederick) (1911-1997)

Anglo-Swiss recorder virtuoso and musical administrator. He was responsible for introducing the mass-produced plastic recorder. In 1960 he published An Introduction to the Recorder in Modern British Music.

Carl Dolmetsch was the son of music pioneer Arnold Dolmetsch. His life's work consisted mainly of continuing his father's activities as an instrument maker and festival administrator. When his father died in 1940, Dolmetsch continued the annual Haslemere Festival of Early Music and Instruments (near the family home in Haslemere, Surrey), serving as director until 1966. He also made his father's journal The Consort an annual publication, after its rather erratic beginnings. His directorship of the Arnold Dolmetsch Foundation also saw the inauguration, in 1948, of the Dolmetsch Summer School for young musicians, which gained an international reputation.

As a recorder player, Carl branched out from the repertoire for which the Dolmetsch family was famous, commissioning much new music for his worldwide tours from composers such as Lennox Berkeley, Arnold Cooke, Nicholas Maw, and Edmund Rubbra. He also played all the viol family of instruments, and played violin in the modern string band of the Haslemere Festival.

He was awarded the CBE in 1954.