Beethoven on an Original Fortepiano in the 1930s: Arnold Dolmetsch, Ruth Eyre and a Stodart Instrument of 1790

From the 1890s until his death, based variously in London, Boston, Paris and Haslemere (Surrey, United Kingdom), he engaged in reconstructing them, rediscovering their playing techniques, and unearthing and editing early repertoire to perform with his family and circle. In discussing Arnold's making of diverse keyboards and other instruments in Boston from 1906 to 1910, and referring also to his earlier work in London, Bavington noted that Arnold ‘has a good claim to be regarded as the father of the fortepiano revival’ (‘The Chickering Early-Instrument Log-Book: An Introduction’, The Consort 79 (2023), 73). [...]between 1898 and 1901 he made three ‘Beethoven’ pianos for specific patrons and exhibited them to the public (Campbell, Dolmetsch, 131 and 138; 143, note 3, and 144, note 19); he also made a fourth instrument of this type in Boston in 1907 or 1908, and possibly two more (see Mabel Dolmetsch, Personal Recollections, 78, and Bavington, ‘The Chickering Early-Instrument Log-Book’, 74, 83–84 and 94). The concerto performance took place in 1934 at the tenth Haslemere Festival, an annual summer event established by Arnold in 1925 to present ‘ancient music’ of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, not only according to what he considered performance styles of their period but also on the kinds of instruments for which the music was written. For information on this activity see Jenny Nex and Lance Whitehead, ‘The Six Early Clavichords of Arnold Dolmetsch: Their Construction and Inspiration’, The Galpin Society Journal 53 (2000), 274–300; Peter Bavington, ‘Arnold Dolmetsch's Clavichord-Making in the Years before 1914’, updated version, www.peter-bavington.co.uk/Bavington-Dolmetsch.pdf (12 August 2022); Edmond Johnson, ‘Arnold Dolmetsch's Green Harpsichord and the Musical Arts & Crafts’, Keyboard Perspectives 10 (2017), 145–167; and Holman, ‘The Harpsichord in 19th-Century Britain’, 10–11.