Richard Mudge

Six concertos were published by Richard Mudge in 1749, while rector of Little Packington. During the 1990s, more music by him has come to light (personal communication from Peter Holman).

In 1978, a descendant of Richard Mudge said that he was born in 1717, and was ordained curate at Great Packington in 1741. He was chaplain to Lord Aylesford, before becoming Rector (personal communication from Mr S E Hammond).

The account which follows is based on: Charles Cudworth: Richard Mudge, in Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians (c1985 edition); Cudworth: sleeve note to recording of Concerto No. 1 in D Major (Oiseau-Lyre, 1957); Arthur Hutchings: The Baroque Concerto (Faber 1959, third edition 1973); Percy Scholes: Richard Mudge, in The Oxford Companion to Music (1938,, ninth edition 1956). Unconsulted references are J. H. Mee: The Oldest Music Room in Europe (London, 191,1), and G. Finzi: Preface to Richard Mudge: Concerto No.4 (London, 1954).

Richard Mudge was born at Bideford, Devon, in 1718 and died in April 1763 (Cudworth adds '?at Bedworth'). He was the son of Dr. Johnson's friend, the Rev. Zachary Mudge (1694-1769), prebendary of Exeter and master of Bideford Grammar School. One of his brothers was Thomas Mudge, the famous horologist or clock-maker, and another was John, the celebrated surgeon. Some of his younger cousins became eminent in the services.

He entered Pembroke College Oxford in 1735 and after graduating he was ordained to a curacy at Great Packington in 1741, then in June 1745 he became rector of Little Packington. A 'Rev. Mr Mudge' of Birmingham subscribed to numerous musical publications in the 1750's. On 28 October 1756 be was presented to the living of All Saints Bedworth, eight months before the death of the patron, the second Earl of Aylesford. According to Scholes, he never resided there. The next presentation to the living was of John Howlette on 4 October 1773 (Davis: Bedworth, A Historical View, n.d.). His place and date of death are unknown.

'Some of his 6 Concerti have been exhumed and found to be effective compositions of the pre-Haydn period. No other works survive' (Percy Scholes).

Aside from a lost Medley Concerto, with [French] Horns, etc. which is listed in the manuscript catalogue of the Oxford Music Club (c.1770), Mudge is known only through a set of Six Concertos in seven parts ... to which is added a 'Non nobis Domine' in eight parts (London, Walsh 1749).

The concertos are written for two solo violins with string ripieno, but the first has an added solo trumpet and the last a solo part for organ or harpsichord. The additional piece is a short Adagio for five-part string orchestra (two violins, two violas and bass) at the climax of which three voices sing the canon 'Non nobis Domine' attributed to Byrd, around which the strings provide counterpoint.

Cudworth says that 'the concertos are noteworthy examples of the late Baroque concerto grosso style, and show Mudge to have been a composer of considerable skill and a flair for the unconventional. Although his musical output was small, it was of unusually high quality; Mudge's Concertos can stand comparison even with those of Handel himself. His Non Nobis Domine is unique, for eighteenth century England, in seeming to hark back to the days of 'grave and solemn fancys'. As a 'dilettante composer', he probably met with little encouragement - who can forget old Handel's rough rejoinder about another clerical composer: 'A parson make concerto! Why he no make sermon?'

Gerald Finzi prepared modern editions of all the concertos, of which three were published (nos. 1, 4 and 6). In 1993, only the trumpet concerto (No. 1) survived in Boosey and Hawkes' catalogue in an edition of 1975. From 1970 this concerto was also available in an edition prepared by Edward Tarr (of the Scola Cantorum Basiliensis and Director of the Trumpet Museum at Bad Saeckingen) for the publisher Musica Rara. In 1991, facsimile editions of all the concertos were issued by King’s Music.

Of the vocal piece, Hutchings waxes poetic, saying Mudge can claim 'lyrical distinction as the author of six concertos and the strands of Non Nobis which Byrd left until civilization should arrive. Bach amplified Palestrina for Leipzig and Mudge amplified Byrd for Birmingham'. His opinion of the concertos is less kind: 'Probably most people today who would like to hear the trumpet and keyboard concertos, because their very conception forced the composer to invention, would be less willing to revive what are called concertos for two violins but are largely imitations of Geminiani's string concertos. Mudge was more conservative than Bond, who shows the coming of the galant style. The score-reading eye could suppose Mudge the better composer, for his study of counterpoint seems to have left him dissatisfied with second violin and viola parts that are no more than fillings; but genuine vitality of melody, rhythm or texture is hard to find. The reader can judge from the Mudge D minor concerto reprinted by Finzi, for this seems the best of the set, and look at the feeble fugue subject and still more feeble countersubjects - if they should claim that title.

'Here are a few of the subscribers to the single sets of six concertos by Bond and Mudge. (We include the names of two private purchasers merely for interest, supposing Mrs Johnson to be the publisher's widow, who may have bought her sets of parts for retail or piracy).

'The number of societies which were ready to patronise composers who were not leaders of London musical activity is as remarkable as the number which bought more than one set of parts. Players could copy single parts, and most of them knew professional copyists, for every cathedral engaged them. It was cheaper, perhaps, to order more than one set of parts when a society's meetings used two or more desks of violas and 'cellos, for when they practised at home. The statement 'separate parts are also available' on advertisements and title-pages suggests that rapacious publishers were not always prepared to sell off-print extra parts of a single edition.

'It has been said that an eighteenth-century publisher was very satisfied if he sold 150 copies of a work. How amply therefore must Walsh, Johnson and others have profited by the concertos of Geminiani and Avison, which ran into several editions of 500 or so, despite the circulation of manuscript copies! How mistaken would be a history of the concerto which treated the British Isles as a tract in which few ears paid attention to music more complex than ornamental variations for flute or spinet upon a favourite air!'

In 1957, the Concerto No.1 for Trumpet, Strings and Continuo in D (arranged Finzi) was issued on a mono long playing record played by Maurice Andre with the Oiseau-Lyre Orchestral Ensemble conducted by Pierre (?Scipione) Colombo (catalogue OL50137). This Oiseau-Lyre recording was later reissued in reprocessed stereo as OLS160 and remained in the catalogue until at least March 1978. Other items in the recording were the Suite in D by Jeremiah Clarke (1673c-1707) arranged Cudworth, and the Concerto in D minor by Capel Bond (1730-1790) ed. Finzi, one of his 6 Concerti in 7 parts of 1766.

According to Hutchings, Mudge may have written his trumpet concerto for a noted local player. There are no other known English concertos written for this instrument between 1740 and 1760, 'and if any were discovered it would surely reveal the decline in virtuosity between trumpet parts from the baroque to the classical period'. Cudworth describes the earlier brilliant clarino style of scoring the trumpet as a brilliantly loud rather martial instrument in D major (its most effective key). This was 'superseded in the latter half of the eighteenth century by the rather unadventurous, rum-ti-tum tonic-and-dominant trumpet parts of the Viennese composers'.

Capel Bond, the Gloucester man who was organist of St. Michael's Coventry and founder of the Birmingham music festivals, wrote a trumpet concerto in 1766 for possibly the same player, modelled on Mudge's piece.

Cudworth's sleeve note to the recording says that 'Mudge's solitary trumpet concerto is of the French overture type so popular in England throughout the Eighteenth Century. A pompous, splendid opening ushers in a fugato, closely wrought, with an elaborate part for the solo trumpet, and then the work ends with a slow air in triple time'.

Denis Stevens, The Gramophone's reviewer in July 1953, describes Mudge as a ‘country parson with a feverish admiration for Handel. Maurice Andr¾ 's trumpet technique is flexible yet dignified, and he is well supported by a small body of strings under Colombo'. In May 1973, Malcolm Macdonald's Gramophone review of the reissue applauds the trumpeter's 'immaculate solo parts', but says 'this record shows its age distinctly more in the rather less than immaculate orchestral accompaniment he receives, and in the feeble reprocessed stereo sound without much of either bass or quality'. This issue 'illuminates some of the byways of English music of the period. But many listeners will wish that on this occasion the illumination had been a bit stronger'. The present writer can only concur, but adds a small note of sympathy for the ensemble musicians, who had the misfortune to be recorded before the movement for authentic performance changed bowing techniques and articulation out of all recognition.

In September 1993 there were no recordings available in the British catalogue of any of Mudge's music.

Mudge's Air

In 1778 a new set of chimes and clock were put up in St. Michael's Coventry by Worton of Birmingham, the former costing £277. In 1818 the tunes played were: Sunday, 104th Psalm. Transferred to Friday; replaced by the Easter Hymn.

- From Tilley and Walters: Church Bells of Warwickshire, 1910.

A prickly parson

Turn the page to read a letter from Richard Mudge.