Arnold Dolmetsch Quotes (1858-1940)

“Out of the conquered Past   Unravishable Beauty; Hearts that are dew and dust   Rebuking the dream of Death; Flower of the clay down-cast   Triumphant in earth’s aroma; Strings that were strained in rust   A-tremble with Music’s breath!Wine that was spilt in haste   Arising in fumes more precious; Garlands that fell forgot   Rooting to wondrous bloom; Youth that would flow to waste   Pausing in pool-green valleys— And Passion that lasted not   Surviving the voiceless Tomb!”

“I have seen the God Pan and it was in this manner: I heard a bewildering and pervasive music moving from precision to precision within itself. Then I heard a different music, hollow and laughing. Then I looked up and saw two eyes like the eyes of a wood-creature peering at me over a brown tube of wood. Then someone said: Yes, once I was playing a fiddle in the forest and I walked into a wasp's nest. ... When a man is able, by a pattern of notes or by an arrangement of planes or colours, to throw us back into the age of truth, a certain few of us – no, I am wrong, everyone who has been cast back into the age of truth for one instant – gives honour to the spell which has worked, to the witch-work or the art-work, or whatever you like to call it. Therefore I say, and stick to it, I saw and heard the God Pan; shortly afterwards I saw and heard Mr. Dolmetsch.”

“It was Dolmetsch, the Belgian [sic] musician, who first taught me what a great musician Sullivan really was; till then I knew nothing of him except as a writer of the comic operas; but Dolmetsch taught me the splendor of 'The Golden Legend' and the beauty of some of his songs, such as 'Oh Mistress Mine' and 'Orpheus with His Lute'. Dolmetsch explained many musical problems to me. Of course, everyone knows that he was the first to make the harpsichord and clavichord as in the earlier days, but to hear him play Bach on the instrument that Bach had written his music for was an unforgettable experience: it was like hearing a great sonnet of Shakespeare perfectly recited for the first time.”