Fipple, Rebec, Crwth

When William the Conqueror was fighting the Battle of Hastings (1066) bearded bards in Wales were taking crwth (pronounced crowd) in hand, sawing a short bow over its strings, singing verses. When Henry VIII was dangling Anne Boleyn on his knees, he often called for his favorite virginal player, listened to thin tinkling music from a small piano-like keyboard. The "Three Musicians'' in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (1594) regaled Elizabethans with harsh, screechy fiddling on rebecs. Milton and Pepys praised the pennywhistle notes of the fipple. Persians were plucking lutes before Attila ravaged Gaul. Crusaders brought dulcimers back to Europe with them from the East. An apprenticeship in his father's piano factory in LeMans, France, several years' work with Chickering in Boston, and with Gaveau in Paris taught Arnold Dolmetsch how to make instruments. This knowledge he passed on to his wife, his daughters, Cecile and Natalie, his sons, Rudolph and Carl. Nights the Dolmetsches get together in their little cluttered home in Haslemere, play antique music on antique instruments or their replicas.

More interesting to musicians than Arnold Dolmetsch's reconstruction of old-time instruments is his research into early music. When he gave his first concert 45 years ago the oldest composition Antiquarian Dolmetsch played dated from the 17th Century. Believing that the past could offer more pungent novelties he studied tirelessly, rediscovered the formal counterpoint and chromatic modulations of the Renaissance. Deciphering manuscripts of Perotin le Grand (circa 1200) revealed a forgotten treasure of intricately constructed works. Moroccan musicians in 1929 taught Dolmetsch the secrets of traditional Andalusian music which influenced 11th and 12th Century European composers.

His greatest feat was the translation of an ancient Welsh manuscript of Bardic music, written approximately 1,000 years ago and the subject for 200 years of fruitless inspection. This, says Arnold Dolmetsch, reveals "a flow of melody and a poignance that proclaim a most inspired and emotional period of music." Compositions of 934 A.D., he found, were "amazingly near akin to the most modern music.

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