The Recorder Music Composed for Carl Dolmetsch, 1939-1989
Dedicated to the memory of Carl Dolmetsch (1911-1997)
by Ross Winters

"One of my aims will be to demonstrate the possibilities of the recorder as a virtuoso instrument on a par with the already accepted violin, flute or pianoforte, and to present masterpieces of music which form part of its literature." This statement could have been made by any of the finest recorder players of this century, but in fact it was Carl Dolmetsch writing in the first issue of The Recorder News in 1939, nearly sixty years ago. He was speaking about his Wigmore Hall recitals, the first of which was given on 1 February 1939. Another was given later in 1939. A third in 1941, and then an unbroken series of 42 from 1948 to 1989. What makes this even more remarkable is that in each of these recitals Carl Dolmetsch played a new work for the recorder. Remarkable vision and remarkable determination.

This extraordinary achievement needs placing, briefly, in its historical context. We can only be amazed at the speed with which the recorder was revived at the beginning of this century. Welch gave his lectures in 1898; Arnold Dolmetsch acquired a recorder in 1905 and his family began playing it. He started making recorders after 1919, and the recorder was played at the first Haslemere Festival in 1926 at which two Germans. Seiffert and Harlan were present. This led to the revival in Germany with its attendant problems of German fingering. In 1932 Hindemith wrote his trio for recorders in A and D, and by the 1930s the recorder was well established as an instrument for young people in Germany. In Haslemere the festivals became annual events featuring the recorder regularly. A key figure in inspiring the composition of new works for recorder in the late 1930s seems to have been Manuel Jacobs, a pupil of Edgar Hunt. At his instigation and apparently with the support of Dolmetsch, works by Bate, Berkeley, Glanville Hicks, Leigh, Pope, and Reizenstein were written. Carl Dolmetsch asserts that the Berkeley Sonatina was written because the composer knew that Dolmetsch would be able to play it. And, indeed, he gave the first performance at the Wigmore Hall in 1939.

So in the space of 40 years the recorder went from being barely understood in its fingering or technique to having first-rate works like the Hindemith trio and Berkeley Sonatina written for it. The Berkeley work remains challenging to this day. Perhaps the first 40 years was the hardest part. After that we have this awe-inspiring sequence of works written for Carl Dolmetsch and then, overlapping with the later years of that, many more works written for players such as Frans Brüggen and John Turner and by player-composers such as Hans-Martin Linde, to name only the most obvious.

One of my aims in writing this article is to re-awaken interest in the earlier English repertoire, much of which over the last thirty years has been dismissed and denied the recognition it deserves. There is much of high musical quality and much to rediscover. Now we can merely begin the process.

Let us examine some of these works in more detail. It is interesting first to survey who the composers were that Dolmetsch turned to most frequently. Top of the list is Rubbra with Meditazioni sopra Coeurs désolés (1949), Fantasia on a Theme of Machaut (1955), Cantata (1957), Passacaglia sopra "Plusieurs regrets" (1962). Sonatina Op. 123 (1965), and Fantasia on a Chord Op. 154 (1978). To this can be added Notturno Op. 106 for recorder quartet written for Carl's children. Next comes Gordon Jacob with the well-known Suite for recorder and strings (1958); Variations for recorder and harpsichord (1963), which marked 30 years of partnership between Carl Dolmetsch and Joseph Saxby; a recorder quartet (1973); and Suite for recorder, violin. cello, and harpsichord (1983). Arnold Cooke contributed a Divertimento for recorder and strings (1960); a Sonata for recorder, violin, cello, and harpsichord (1965); the Suite for three recorders and harpsichord (1973); and another Divertimento for soprano and alto recorders, violin, cello, and harpsichord in 1986. Sir Lennox Berkeley produced three works, beginning with the Sonatina (1939); then in 1956 a Concertino Op. 48 for recorder, violin, cello, and harpsichord; and in 1979 a Cantata Concertante for soprano voice, viola da gamba, recorder, and harpsichord to a text "Una and the Lion" from Spenser's Faerie Queen. Hans Gal and Alan Ridout also wrote three works each. making a total of 23 works by six composers. One should add to this list four more pieces all written by Colin Hand, though the one specifically written for the Wigmore Hall concert was subsequently withdrawn, leaving Petite Suite Champêtre for soprano recorder and piano (1970), Plaint for tenor recorder and harpsichord (1971), and Sonata Breve for alto recorder and piano (1971).

In addition to all these composers who wrote three or more works there are a number of others now being recognized who wrote one or two. One of the first of these is York Bowen, who wrote a substantial sonata for Dolmetsch, first performed in 1948. Bowen was an outstanding pianist (b. 1884). Although late 19th- and early 20th-century characteristics are obvious in the harmony and piano textures, the piece sounds English in a way which became more evident with composers such as Gerald Finzi. The recorder sustains the musical argument and flows effortlessly and convincingly over the entire duration of the piece, some 13 minutes in all. The first and second movements are for alto, but the last, for soprano, heralds what was later to become the common-place practice of using more than one recorder in a piece. This final movement is of sparkling vitality and takes the soprano up to high F sharp. The work is now readily available in an edition published by June Emerson and has received a sympathetic performance from Piers Adams on his CD Shine and Shade.

Edmund Rubbra (1901-1986)

Rubbra is arguably the finest of all the composers we shall consider. He was taught at the Royal College of Music by Holst and occasionally by Vaughan Williams. A composer of 11 symphonies, his musical thought was influenced by his religious and philosophical interests. He became a Roman Catholic in 1948 and was also involved in Buddhism and Taoism. His music is, according to The New Grove, invariably vocal in expression, and even his smallest pieces are rooted in some basic idea that conditions the whole expression. In the recorder pieces, this is often something as obvious as the use of medieval and Renaissance melodies, by definition vocal. The Meditazioni, the Passacaglia, the Fantasia on a Theme of Machaut and the last movement of the Sonata all come into this category. The Sonata ends with a set of variations on "En fuente del Rosel" by Juan Vasquez from the sixteenth century.

There is something about these roots going back hundreds of years which is ideally suited to the nature of the recorder, and yet the totally convincing musical language transforms the material into music which communicates at a deep level. Having performed all four of the above works in public, and worked on them and the recorder quartet with students, I am assured of their quality. None of them is particularly extrovert music, but all of them have an integrity and a unity which is at times very moving. In connection with Meditazioni, the first of the works to be written, it is worth mentioning that in his obituary of Rubbra in the Recorder Magazine in 1986, Edgar Hunt claims the credit for suggesting that Dolmetsch approach Rubbra for this piece. As a performance practice issue, he also makes clear that Rubbra himself actually preferred the piano as the accompanying instrument and that he intended the slow tempi marked in the score. (Given that most of these works written for Dolmetsch involved his harpsichordist, Joseph Saxby, it is not surprising that harpsichord is the instrument specified, although this could now throw up some amusing late 20th century questions of authenticity, given the nature of the harpsichord in question and whether the composer really preferred it to the piano.) To return to Meditazioni, the meditations of the title are actually variation-like sections, but each section merges and blends with total naturalness into the next in a way which provides continuity and contrast. The piece resolves in an almost timeless way at the end.

Perhaps too, the fact that there is no sense in Rubbra's music of technical difficulty for the player contributes to its effectiveness. One is not in any way listening to the usual things of speed, difficulty, and technical novelty. The challenge for the recorder player is actually to be an effective musical communicator. Subtleties of fingering, tone production, and vibrato are the significant factors, coupled with the ability to live in the depth of the music.

Gordon Jacob (1895-1984)

Another effective and convincing composer for the recorder was Gordon Jacob. He studied at the Royal College of Music with Stanford and Howells. Stanford was influenced by German music, notably that of Brahms, whereas Howells was more obviously English. Jacob taught at the RCM for 40 years, where his pupils included Antony Hopkins and Malcolm Arnold, both of whom subsequently wrote for the recorder. Jacob said. "I dislike an academic outlook. My style is deeply rooted in the traditions in which I was trained and which, by inclination, I followed." His compositions are marked by sterling craftsmanship, clarity, economy, and directness. He was drawn to wind instruments. He is capable of writing deeply expressive music with a truly English feel as well as finales of breathtaking vivacity.

Jacob's best-known work is the ever popular Suite for recorder and strings which Dolmetsch premiered in 1958. The quality of this work was recognized immediately at the first performance. I can do no better than confirm the opinion of the Daily Telegraph critic: "Gordon Jacob is a master craftsman ... breathing new life into new and old without in any way distorting their character. His Suite was an inspiring work. In the slow movements the string writing had a deep poignancy, while the quick movements were brimming over with wit." The rhythmic vitality and excitement of movements like the Tarantella and the Burlesca alla Rumba are invigorating; the slow movements have a haunting beauty, particularly in their harmonic language.

Dolmetsch turned to Jacob again in 1963, resulting in the composition and performance of Variations for recorder and harpsichord to mark 30 years partnership between himself and Saxby. I feel that, given a sympathetic performance, the work reveals all the qualities which make the Suite so successful. It begins with a theme of beautiful simplicity which Dolmetsch describes as having a Scottish flavour, the repeated notes lending themselves well to treatment in variation form. The rhythmic energy is immediately apparent in Variation I. and the expressive qualities reveal themselves in Variation 2. The piece proceeds with this variety of expression through six more variations, including one for solo harpsichord, until the tenth and final variation, which is one of those fleet-footed 6/8 movements of great rapidity with many semitonal figures typical of the way in which Jacob chooses to end several of his recorder pieces.

Ten years later in 1973, Jacob produced a quartet for the Wigmore Hall recital of that year. This is now available in a version for wind quartet. Its fifth movement is a chorale prelude based on "Ein feste Burg." The chorale, which is shared between various voices, is played against a texture of three-part counterpoint. It is another successful use of pre-existent material blended into a modern style, a concept which we have already highlighted in Rubbra's music. It may be a significant point that many of Hans-Martin Linde's most successful works are those in which he reaches back into the past for his primary musical material. One thinks of Hommage to Van Eyck, Una follia nuova, several of the pieces in the Basel Recorder Book, and more recently his sonata for alto recorder and organ.

The final Jacob work comes 10 years later still: a quartet for recorder, violin, cello, and harpsichord. This is one of several works on our list which have not yet been published. I hope that, in due course, it may be possible to bring them into general circulation. In the meantime, a quote from the original Recorder Magazine review of 1983 will give us some idea of what we may discover. "The new suite displays to the full the composer's characteristic sensitivity to the demands and capabilities of each of the instruments, which are made to blend into an entirely satisfying whole. The performers captured every nuance of mood in this generally restrained work, from the antique melodies of the slow movements to the general ebullience of the finale, with its wry (possibly unintentional) hint at a popular tune."

Sir Lennox Berkeley (1903-1989)

Sir Lennox Berkeley is another of the finest of those composers who wrote more than one work for Dolmetsch. Berkeley's background is different from that of Jacob and Rubbra. Like Britten, he was educated at Gresham's School in Norfolk; then he read languages at Oxford but, instead of being a product of the Royal College of Music, he spent five years from 1927 to 1932 with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, where he met Stravinsky and formed a lifelong friendship with Poulenc. Like Rubbra, he too became a Roman Catholic and wrote a fair quantity of sacred music, although his output covers all types of music including opera.

Lennox Berkeley's Sonatina has already been mentioned. It remains a work which,all students aspire to play convincingly, largely because it does not lie comfortably for the recorder in all passages. Once the difficulties have been overcome, however, it reveals itself as a work totally capable of involving the player and listener at all times. The ideas of the first movement are fluently blended, with a clear sense of structure and a telling climax. The second movement is beautifully written, with particular regard for the textures of the piano part. The finale is well known for its witty as well as virtuosic writing.

By the late 1950s, many solo works with keyboard had been composed, but Dolmetsch was keen for there also to be music for solo recorder accompanied by strings or chamber ensemble in the manner so brilliantly exploited by composers such as Telemann, Alessandro Scarlatti, and J.S. Bach in the 4th Brandenburg Concerto. Rubbra's Fantasia on a Theme of Machaut (1955) was the first work to tackle this need, and Berkeley's Concertino (1956} the second. The Concertino is a truly outstanding piece of chamber music. Its opening movement makes an arresting start, full of stunning energy and rhythmical interest, with all four instruments fully involved. Later there is a contrasting theme of much lyricism, and these elements are contrasted in the most compelling way throughout the movement. There is nothing predictable about the counterpoint or the interchange between instruments. The work continues with a haunting dialogue between cello and recorder alone which is then balanced by a duet for harpsichord and violin. The last movement shows great flair and urgency, perhaps disappointing slightly with its slightly contrived arrival on a G-major chord.

This sequence of works for recorder and strings continued in 1958 with the suite by Jacob, in 1959 with the Suite by Simpson, and in 1960 with a Divertimento by Arnold Cooke, bringing to an end a decade which Dolmetsch had begun in 1950 with the Murrill Sonata, a repeat of the Berkeley Sonatina, Antony Hopkins' Suite, and Norman Fulton's Scottish Suite.

Arnold Cooke (1906-2005)

Cooke has written perhaps more than anyone for the instrument, though possibly not all of it of has the consistently high quality that Rubbra and Jacob produced. Cooke studied under Dent at Cambridge and from 1929 to 1932 with Hindemith at the Berlin Hochschule. Here again I must mention Hindemith's Trio, which was composed during the time Cooke was studying with him, and we may wonder how strong an influence this might have been on Cooke. On his return to England he succeeded Walter Leigh as music director of the Festival Theatre. Cambridge. As we know, Leigh also wrote a very lyrical and expressive piece for recorder. Once again these possible links are tantalizing. Cooke taught at the Royal Northern College of Music before World War II and afterwards for many years at Trinity College of Music, London.

Cooke's works appear four times in the Wigmore Hall list -- the first time, as already mentioned, with a Divertimento for recorder and strings in 1960. In 1965 he composed a sonata for recorder, violin, cello, and harpsichord, so-called because it is consciously related to Baroque chamber works. This is taken even further by beginning with an obvious French overture-type movement, the slow dotted patterns of which (also very Hindemithian) are followed by a fugal quick movement. It could be argued that perhaps the counterpoint, or the way in which the instruments share some of the themes in the piece, are rather too predictable, almost as if they each have to take turns. On the other hand, I have always found the Trio (1973) for three recorders and optional harpsichord to be a highly convincing work, combining some considerable depth of expression in the slow movements with a lightness of touch and brilliance in the quicker ones. It again depends on some Baroque-type forms, but these are handled with originality and prove to be superbly effective in performance. Apart from the works Cooke wrote specifically for Dolmetsch, his Serial Theme and Variations and his two large-scale recorder quartets are outstanding.

I have necessarily concentrated on those I feel are the finest composers but would like to round off with a brief summary of some of the other works which appear on the Wigmore Hall list. We should not forget that the Murrill Sonata (1950) and the Hopkins Suite (1953), both still much enjoyed by teenage pupils, were inspired by Dolmetsch. Then there are three works including a singer: cantatas by Rubbra and Berkeley and a song by Bergmann. Bergmann's Pastorella for unaccompanied soprano voice and sopranino recorder was encored at its first performance in 1972 and described as "haunting and evocative ... achieving within an economic melodic line qualities of mellowness and expression rarely associated with this tiny instrument." Having experienced the effect that Bergmann's alto recorder sonata had on an audience when I performed it in Norfolk last year, this does not come as a surprise to me, but more as a frustration, since the music is now out of print.

Finally, some unusual combinations. In 1977 Alan Hoddinott's Italian Suite for recorder and guitar was played and, in 1980, Michael Berkeley's American Suite for recorder and bassoon. Before this, in 1974, there had been another appearance of a Baroque-type instrumentation with William Mathias's Concertino for recorder, oboe, bassoon, and harpsichord. 1975 saw Alan Ridout's Sequence for recorder and lute, and in 1976 was performed Interplay for recorder, percussion, harpsichord, and gamba by Malcolm Lipkin.

It is worth pointing out that not all the composers whose music Dolmetsch played were British. The list includes Alan Hovhaness and Ingolf Dahl (USA), Georges Migot and Jean Françla;aix (France), and Nigel Butterley (Australia).

Conclusion

In recent years there has been some prejudice against Dolmetsch. In my student days in Amsterdam, there was no question of playing these English works. It was almost damning enough to call them English and write them off as pastoral, pseudo-Baroque music. The 60s and 70s were the years of the avant-garde in recorder music. However, this may not be the case indefinitely.

It is high time we reassessed this music. The end of a century is always a good time to take stock, and for the recorder repertoire this should be a valuable exercise. Our century has, for example, not only produced Berio, Shinohara, Donatoni, Hirose, Ishii, and Andriessen. It has also produced Bowen, Rubbra, Jacob, Berkeley, Cooke, Bergmann, Staeps, Linde and, more recently, composers such as Markus Zahnhausen, who do not depend on the avant-garde for their raison d'etre. Not that I have any intrinsic objection to extended techniques. They just need integrating into a musical language which already has a coherence and the capacity to articulate a depth and range of human experience in a way which is reasonably accessible to an audience. I am, of course, aware of the argument that some great works -- for example, Schubert's 9th Symphony -- were unappreciated and considered unplayable at first. In the case of many of the works we have been discussing, however, their quality was clearly appreciated by their initial reviewers and has continued to be appreciated subsequently.

We should pay tribute to Carl Dolmetsch for his extraordinary pioneering work in this field. It fell to him, as the first recorder soloist of distinction in this century, to set a precedent which others have followed. It would be appropriate to end with his words from his article in the Recorder Magazine (1968). "We welcome the fact that composers of our time are writing for our instrument, but at the same time we cannot automatically hail every work from a modern pen as a masterpiece. Discrimination is essential to the selection of music in any age and is a fundamental precaution not confined to the field of recorder music alone."

Compiler's Note

The following list is based on information originally supplied to me by Carl Dolmetsch. I have attempted to provide additional information derived from my own collection of music, telephone conversations with some of the composers and publishing firms, Eve O'Kelly's The Recorder Today (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), and publishers' catalogues. David Lasocki has added information about editions from the OCLC database. More work remains to be done in completing this task.

First Performances Played by Carl Dolmetsch and Associates at the Wigmore Hall, London, 1939-1989

Additional Works Written for Carl Dolmetsch and Family

This article is based on a talk given by Ross Winters at the ERTA-UK Conference in May 1997. The talk was illustrated with recordings by Piers Adams, Carl Dolmetsch himself, Michala Petri, and Ross Winters.

Lost work by Robert Simpson found and recorded

In 1959 Robert Simpson wrote 'Variations and Fugue for Recorder and String Quartet' for Carl Dolmetsch.
Long thought lost, even by 'Bob' Simpson himself, the score has now turned up in the Dolmetsch archives.
Simpson admirers will no doubt like to know that it has been recorded by John Turner and the Camerata Ensemble on an Olympia CD, OCD710.
Copies are available from Olympia dealers and/or from
Robert Simpson Society [http://robertsimpson.info]

Music Now In Print

Since Ross Winter presented this paper certain work have been put into print.
Jeanne Dolmetsch has been invited to prepare editions to be published by Peacock Press.
For complete details of this series refer to 20th Century Recorder Archive.