Douglas Hollick, ‘The Genesis of the Early Music Revival in Europe and the USA: Arnold Dolmetsch in Boston’
This lecture-recital, by internationally acclaimed early keyboard music specialist Douglas Hollick, will feature the 1909 clavichord by Arnold Dolmetsch which was part of Christopher Hogwood’s collection of instruments auctioned in 2015. After a Saxon original of 1784 by Hoffmann owned by Dolmetsch, this instrument is number 51 in a series of harpsichords and clavichords made by the Chickering piano factory in Boston under the direction of Dolmetsch, who worked there from 1905 to 1911. Dolmetsch’s name is now particularly associated with recorders, but the founder of the family business, Arnold, started taking an interest in copying a variety of original instruments in the 1890s, and exploring the way they would have been played. His extraordinary skill and enthusiasm generated the beginnings of what we now know as ‘period performance practice’ using original instruments and copies of them.
Douglas Hollick studied with Peter Hurford, Marie-Claire Alain, and Gustav Leonhardt, and has been a maker of harpsichords and clavichords for 15 years in parallel with his playing. He now teaches in Clare College, Cambridge. The lecture-recital programme will include works by C P E Bach, Jiri Benda and Haydn, alongside discussion of the historical context of the early years of Arnold Dolmetsch’s life and work.
Admission is free and all are welcome; no reservation required.
For further information, please contact director.of.music@newn.cam.ac.uk