Richard Mudge was born in Bideford in 1718, and baptized in St.Mary’s Church, on 26 December . He was the third son of Zachariah Mudge, who was the first headmaster at Bideford Grammar School. Like his older brother, Thomas, and his younger brother, John, he would have been educated at Bideford Grammar School, probably by his own father, and was the first member of the family to go to university. In 1735, he went up to Pembroke College, Oxford, gaining a BA in 1738, and an MA in 1741.
He studied theology with the aim of becoming a Church of England priest, but .whilst at university developed a keen interest in music as well. He was ordained as a curate in Little Packington and Great Packington, Warwickshire, eventually becoming a rector of the latter in 1745. He had not been there very long when he began to complain of the lack of cultural activity in the locality, but this was soon rectified when he was invited along to Packington Hall, the home of Heanage Finch, Lord Aylesbury, who was a talented amateur musician himself, and who held regular concerts for amateur musicians at his house.
It was at this time that Mudge started writing music , and it was there that he wrote his best known work ‘Six Concertos for Seven Parts’. It was there too that he met the wealthy Charles Jennens, who wrote the libretti for many of Handel’s best known works, including the ‘Messiah’, and it was through Jennens that Mudge became acquainted with Handel, whose music heavily influenced his own.
But Mudge was intent on moving to Birmingham, and in 1750, his patron, Lord Aylesbury, reluctantly found him a post as rector in St, Martin’s, Birmingham, where he became a popular
preacher. Six years later he moved to Bedworth, Warwickshire, where he eventually stood down as rector, remaining there until his death in1763, still only in his mid-forties.
He married Mary Hopkins in 1747, and they had a daughter, also Mary, born in 1752.
Richard was an accomplished organist, and also wrote an Organ Concerto. He also wrote a Medley Concerto, which was a lighter piece, based on Scottish dance tunes, but this latter piece was published anonymously, as it was written for a series of Medley concerts or variety shows given at the Little Haymarket Theatre in London in 1757, and being a reverend gentleman, he thought it best that its authorship remain anonymous. In fact, it is only relatively recently that scholars have realised that Rev. Richard Mudge, and the composer of the Medley Concerto are one and the same person.
There are, in fact, recordings of the ‘Six Concertos’ on CD, and the Organ Concerto is available as an American import. The Medley Concerto was recorded in the year 2000, but unfortunately is not currently obtainable on disc, though the score is commercially available.
Richard Mudge was largely forgotten as a composer after his death and tastes changed, until his work was championed by the modern composer, Gerald Finzi in the 1950s, who described several of his string concertos as “of outstanding beauty and dignity”. .
There are other surviving instrumental works by Mudge, including violin and trio sonatas, and it is possible that there are more works to discover.
But it is interesting to find that a composer of such accomplishment was born and bred in Bideford, even if he was the ‘black sheep’ of the family in that after leaving Bideford he never returned, and as a consequence, I would guess, his name is completely unknown in his home town, and his music never played by his fellow Bidefordians.
I’m just about to play a movement from his Organ concerto, and it’s just possible that this is the first time the music of Richard Mudge has ever been played in his home town in public. The entire piece is only 11 minutes long. If I were to be asked for my unbiased opinion of it, I would describe it as rather fine, but judge for yourself.
I’ve discovered in the last few days, that all the six concertos from his Six Concertos for Seven Parts
are available on YouTube on your computer, so you can listen to any or all of them at your leisure when you get home. They are all quite short, between ten and fifteen minutes long.
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