The names of the materials used to make or restore instruments sound like music by themselves: rosewood, olive and ebony, paduk, coromandel, satin, tulip wood with ivory inlay. Many of Dolmech's creations are decorated with ivory inlays, and under one of the workbenches there is a chest full of discs sawn off from elephant tusks and looking like giant white checkers.

"We have nowhere to turn around here. That's why we built a new factory on the other side of Hazel World. We hope that we will be able to eliminate the backlog in order fulfillment. We are two or three years late in making some tools."

Due to the sharply increased interest in ancient music, which is largely caused by their research and creativity, the Dolmech family is now engaged not so much in restoring old instruments as in making new ones.

"We are not engaged in slavish imitation of the originals. We are not antiquarians at all, as some people believe. They are even very indignant when they discover that we put electric bellows in a Renaissance organ or plastic levers in a clavichord, but they do not understand the main thing. And the main thing is the sound. We never sacrifice it, but if we neglected the opportunity to achieve the same or clearer sound in a more reliable way, we would not be true masters.

We are not afraid to adapt to new conditions. My father once made harpsichords “for taxis", specially designed for trips around London and the surrounding area. We also had to make a “jet” spinet, which we take with us on trips, small, durable and light enough to carry on airplanes.

The same principle applies to our music. We are still searching for old works and giving new interpretations to existing ones, but this does not prevent us from showing a keen interest in modern music. I remember concerts where, at my invitation, almost every piece we performed was followed by a composer who was in the audience and bowed to the audience."

From the point of view of mass production, the most remarkable example of the ingenuity and enterprise of the Dolmech family is a plastic recorder that costs only two rubles, a longitudinal flute with seven finger holes (the eighth for the thumb) and a beak—shaped mouthpiece, the annual output of which in Hazelmir workshops is 250 thousand pieces. This flute is played more often now than any other musical instrument in our day or in the past. In recognition of the revolution that this flute produced in musical performance, the Paris Conservatoire put up a plastic "dolmech" in an honorary showcase.

During the Renaissance, instruments of this type were the main instruments for home concerts. Henry VIII had "76 large and small" longitudinal flutes, and it remained popular until the end of the 18th century. Arnold Dolmech rediscovered the flute after a century of domination by chamber pianos. He gave concerts on antique instruments, but did not think about making them until his son Karl lost one of the beautiful examples of the XVIII century at the railway station. https://bisabo.com/