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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2020
A previously unnoticed concerto for two horns and strings published anonymously in London probably in late 1757 or 1758 is attributable to Richard Mudge (1718–63), a clergyman-composer best known for his Six Concertos in Seven Parts. The print names it A Concerto Principally Form'd upon Subjects Taken from Three Country Dances, and there is evidence to suggest that it is identical to the Medley Concerto listed elsewhere under Mudge's name. The concerto can in turn be linked to so-called ‘Medley Concerts’ that took place in London in 1757. The country dances, on whose material Mudge draws with obvious respect for the originals, are all Scottish tunes found in James Oswald's slightly earlier collections. Mudge's original and attractive work testifies to the great interest in Scottish, in particular ‘Highland’, music in mid-eighteenth-century London, prompting reflection on the many-sided and surprisingly intimate relationship that then existed between traditional music and art music.
1 London, British Library, h.1568.f.(1.). RISM does not list this item at the time of writing, although it is given in The British Union-Catalogue of Early Music Published before the Year 1801: A Record of the Holdings of Over One Hundred Libraries Throughout the British Isles, ed. Edith B. Schnapper, 2 vols. (London: Butterworths Scientific Publications, 1957), i, 211.
2 A Catalogue of Vocal and Instrumental Music Printed for and Sold by John Johnson, Opposite Bow Church, in Cheapside, London (London: John Johnson, c.1754).
3 These catalogues are held by the British Library under the shelfmarks L.23.c.10.(12.) and Hirsch IV.1111.(9.) respectively.
4 Additional Catalogue (London: Robert Bremner, [c.1782]), [1].
5 The long dash following the title might in certain circumstances be interpreted as equivalent to ‘ditto’, thus referring back to a detail in a previous entry, but in Bremner's catalogue such dashes appear to have been inserted merely in order to fill up some of the vacant space between the end of the description and the price. A reduction in price from 2s to 1s 6d is consistent with the claim made in the title of Bremner's Additional Catalogue.
6 These two principal alternative modes of publication are discussed in Michael Kassler, Music Entries at Stationers’ Hall 1710–1818 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), p. xx, n. 24.
7 This keyboard arrangement survives, apparently uniquely, in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, under the shelfmark Vet. Mus. 137 c. 88 (4). The authors are extremely grateful to Jennifer Ward at RISM for alerting them to this source, and to Harry Johnstone for providing scans of it. The Johnson catalogues of 1764 and 1770 list the item, priced at 6d, in the section for ‘Lessons and Concertos for the Harpsichord’, but it is not present in Bremner's Additional Catalogue.
8 A good comparator would be the concerto with horns by Johann Adolph Hasse (originally the sinfonia to his opera Asteria) first published by John Walsh in 1740 as op. 4 no. 1 and subsequently much copied and published both in orchestral parts and in keyboard arrangement (Johnson's catalogue of c.1754 lists it as ‘Hasse's Concerto, F[or] Horns’; Bremner's Additional Catalogue as ‘Hasse's favourite Concerto’). ‘Favourite’, in its eighteenth-century sense, denotes a piece that prior to publication had received public performances, where it had been (or at least was claimed to have been) well received.
9 The restriction of spoken drama to the patent theatres was enshrined in the Licensing Act of 1737.
10 The thought occurs that, as a bassoonist, the German-born Lampe could even have played the part of ‘Mynheer Van-poop-poop Broomstickado’ in the show.
11 The last advertisement for them appeared in the Public Advertiser of 5 November 1757.
12 A transcription of the entry is given in John Henry Mee, The Oldest Music Room in Europe: A Record of Eighteenth-Century Enterprise at Oxford (London: John Lane, 1911), 57. As an Anglican cleric, Mudge had a stronger than usual reason not to be associated (beyond his circle of intimates) with a boisterous and satirical public entertainment. Like certain other Anglican clergymen who were composers, Mudge styles himself plain ‘M.r’ (rather than ‘Rev.d’ or ‘Rev.d M.r’) on the title page of his concertos – a clear sign of prudence.
13 Others were William Felton (1716–69), John Pixell (1725–84) and Thomas Bowman (1728–92). On the tensions between pastoral duties and musical leanings, see Michael Talbot, ‘Thomas Bowman, Vicar of Martham: Evangelist and Composer’, Early Music, 44 (2016), 77–88.
14 Unless otherwise referenced, the details given here about Richard Mudge's life reprise or paraphrase information found in the most substantial and up-to-date account of the composer: Richard Platt, ‘New Light on Richard Mudge, 1718–63: Some Aspects of Social Status and Amateur Music-Making’, Early Music, 28 (2000), 531–45.
15 There is no information so far on Mudge's musical activity at Oxford. It would be typical of his age if he retained a lifelong connection with university circles there: perhaps the disclosure, in the Oxford Musical Society's inventory, of his authorship of the Medley Concerto hints at such a relationship.
16 Mudge was certainly a collector and copyist of Handel's music. See John H. Roberts, ‘The Aylesford Collection’, Handel Collections and their History, ed. Terence Best (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), 39–85 (pp. 47–8).
17 Stamford Raffles Flint, Mudge Memoirs: Being a Record of Zachariah Mudge and Some Members of his Family: Together with a Genealogical List of the Same Compiled from Family Papers and Other Sources, Illustrated with Portraits (Truro: Netherton & Worth, 1883), 68.
18 Anon., ‘Memoirs of the Life and Mechanical Labours of the Late Mr. Thomas Mudge’, Universal Magazine of Knowledge and Pleasure, 97 (1795), 41–7 (p. 41n.).
19 A chapel of ease was a subsidiary church erected on the outskirts of a parish for the convenience of those living at a distance from the parish church itself.
20 RISM lists, as A/I M7726 and MM7726, no fewer than 16 examples of the print.
21 Arthur Hutchings, The Baroque Concerto (London: Faber & Faber, 1961), 264–6.
22 Richard Mudge, Six Concertos in Seven Parts (rec. 2009), perf. by Capriccio Barockorchester, dir. by Dominik Kiefer, Tudor: TUDOR7173.
23 Details in Platt, ‘New Light on Richard Mudge’, 538–41. The group of Mudge manuscripts in the Coke collection held by Hampshire Record Office under the shelfmark HC 3070 C(S)2 at the time of Platt's article is now Accession no. 3070 at the new site for that collection in the Foundling Museum.
24 Roberts, ‘The Aylesford Collection’, 47.
25 Mudge does not supply among the parts the notes and words of the canon (most suitably sung by ATB or TTB), since these were ultra-familiar to every musical Englishman: this perpetual canon ‘three in one’, dubiously attributed to William Byrd (but based on an earlier motet by Philip van Wilder), became identified as early as the seventeenth century as an emblem of patriotism and religious orthodoxy – ironically, since in the sixteenth century it had served, with its original text opening ‘Aspice, domine’, as a rallying cry for recusants. Non nobis, domine was sung as the customary conclusion of meetings of the Academy of Ancient Music, the Madrigal Society, the Noblemen and Gentlemen's Catch Club and doubtless many other musical bodies. The information in the literature on the canon Non nobis, domine is very dispersed. The most comprehensive summary currently available is probably the Wikipedia entry: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non_nobis> (accessed 20 January 2018).
26 Perhaps Julie Anne Sadie was thinking of this very piece when she aptly wrote of Mudge's ‘flair for the unconventional’. See Sadie, Companion to Baroque Music (London: Dent, 1990), 312.
27 Manchester, Henry Watson Music Library, MS130Hd4, vols. 86–92. We are most grateful to the library's Ros Edwards for sending scans of sample pages. The text of this autograph manuscript is so close to that of the Walsh edition that, as Platt comments, it quite probably served as the final printer's copy. Platt, ‘New Light on Richard Mudge’, 540.
28 Mudge's belt-and-braces approach to the notation of chromatic inflection may reflect his experience of amateur music-making in the provinces, where knowledge of the standard rules could perhaps not be taken absolutely for granted.
29 Whenever the concertino violins or the cello have nothing independent to play, their partbooks merely duplicate the text of the corresponding ripieno part. Conversely, the ripieno parts for violins hardly ever contain anything distinctive: when they are not simply doubling the concertino line, they variously pause, present a simplified version of it and (but much less frequently) contribute a simple harmonic support.
30 Richard Maunder, The Scoring of Baroque Concertos (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2004), 131.
31 Mudge writes for horns pitched in D, the home key of the work, notating the parts in C major, a minor seventh above sounding pitch. Between them, the parts employ a compass running from written c′ (fourth harmonic) to c′′′ (sixteenth harmonic). The described transposition is retained in Michael Talbot's edition of the Medley Concerto (Launton: Edition HH, 2015).
32 For example, the first and third movements of Telemann's Concerto in E minor for flute and recorder, TWV 52:e1, use the ‘frame’ device in a very similar way.
33 There is, however, a subtle anticipation of the first bar of the dance (in rhythm, and partly in melodic contour) in bar 4.
34 We use the term ‘exposition’ here in its American and German sense (Durchführung in German), referring to any block of entries – even an isolated entry – of the subject occurring in the course of the movement, rather than in its older British sense referring only to the first such block.
35 The Caledonian Pocket Companion Containing a Favourite Collection of Scotch Tunes with Variations for the German Flute or Violin, 12 books bound in 2 vols. (London: James Oswald, c.1745–c.1760), vol. ii, book 7 (c.1756), 32.
36 In the present description, concertino and ripieno violins are assumed to be in unison unless otherwise stated.
37 Francesco Barsanti (c.1690–1775) was resident in Scotland from 1735 to 1743, and published an influential collection of Old Scots Tunes in 1742. On Barsanti's life and career, see Jasmin Cameron and Michael Talbot, ‘A Many-Sided Musician: The Life of Francesco Barsanti (c.1690–1775) Revisited’, Recercare, 25 (2013), 95–154; on his use of popular material in op. 4, see Michael Talbot, ‘Francesco Barsanti and the Lure of National Song’, Il saggiatore musicale, 22 (2015), 33–59.
38 CPC, vol. i, book 6 (c.1755), 1. This version appends three variations to the tune.
39 The melody could of course have been simplified deliberately to suit the character and technique of the natural horn.
40 Peter Holman has pointed out to us in private correspondence how the sparse writing for two unaccompanied solo violins in bars 61–8 suggests the influence of William Boyce, who used the same effect in his overture to Peleus and Thetis (c.1740).
41 Charles Gore, The Scottish Fiddle Music Index: Tune Titles from the Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Printed Instrumental Music Collections; List of Indexed and Related Collections and Where to Find Them; Index to Numerical Musical Theme Codes (Musselburgh: Amaising Publishing House, 1994).
42 CPC, vol. i, book 6 (c.1755), 1; vol. ii, book 7 (c.1756), 32. Assuming CPC was Mudge's source, it is interesting to observe that books 6 and 7 were published only in c.1755 and c.1756 respectively – thus only shortly before the probable date of publication of the parts for the Medley Concerto.
43 A Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs for the Voice, 5 vols. (Edinburgh: George Thomson, 1799–1818), iv (1805), 189; Ferdinand Ries, The Old Highland Laddie: A Favorite Scotch Air with Variations for the Piano Forte (London: E. Lavenu, [1820?]).
44 Thomas Arne, The Highland Laddie, National Library of Scotland (2004), <http://digital.nls.uk/broadsides/broadside.cfm/id/15922> (accessed 9 November 2015).
45 Part Third of the Complete Repository of Original Scots Slow Strathspeys, and Dances (the Dances Arranged as Medleys) for the Harp or Piano-Forte Violin and Violoncello, etc. (Edinburgh: Gow & Shepherd, c.1806), 18.
46 John Purser, ‘Notes to Volume II Book VII of James Oswald's Caledonian Pocket Companion’, The Caledonian Pocket Companion by James Oswald, CD-ROM (East Drayton: Nick Parkes, 2007), [14].
47 CPC, vol.ii, book 9 (c.1758), 68–9.
48 Nathaniel Gow had a reputation for such ‘borrowing’. See Mary Anne Alburger, Scottish Fiddlers and their Music (London: Gollancz, 1983), 126–30.
49 The Fifer's Companion N o 1, Containing Instructions for Playing the Fife, and a Collection of Music, Consisting of Marches, Airs, etc. with their Seconds Added, ed. Joshua Cushing (Salem: Cushing & Appleton, 1805), 21; William A. Brown, untitled manuscript book for clarinet, Peabody and Essex Museums, James Duncan Phillips Library (US-SA), MSS 475, box 4, folder 5, fol. 7v.
50 Francis Collinson, The Traditional and National Music of Scotland (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966), 26.
51 Interestingly, there is a Jacobite association with Gow's setting, Amulree being a hamlet in Perthshire where, it is said, a meeting was held ‘to ascertain the feelings of individuals towards the cause’. Jacobite Minstrelsy; With Notes Illustrative of the Text, and Containing Historical Details in Relation to the House of Stuart, from 1640 to 1784 (Glasgow: Richard Griffen, 1829), 118. Further settings of ‘Ambelree’ were published throughout the nineteenth century in collections including Joseph Lowe, Lowe's Collection of Reels, Strathspeys and Jigs, Being a New and Complete Selection of the Best Dancing Tunes in their Proper Keys, 6 vols. (Edinburgh: Paterson, c.1844), vi, 14; John Thomas Surenne, The Dance Music of Scotland: A Collection of All the Best Strathspeys and Reels, Both of the Highlands and Lowlands (Edinburgh: Bayley & Ferguson, 1850), 38; James Kerr, Kerr's Second Collection of Merry Melodies for the Violin: Consisting of Scotch and Irish Reels and Jigs, Highland Schottisches, Country Dances, Hornpipes, Clog Dances, Waltzes, Polkas, etc., in all 445 Airs, Specially Arranged for the Ballroom (Glasgow: Bayley & Ferguson, c.1870), 16; James Stewart Robertson, The Athole Collection of the Dance Music of Scotland (Edinburgh: MacLachlan & Stewart; London: J. B. Cramer, 1884), 155.
52 The b′′ in bar 3 of Example 8(d) is perhaps a miscopied or mistranscribed note rather than a genuine variant. The dissociation of the slow and brisk sections of ‘The Highlanders’ March’ is not surprising, given that traditional music is typically transmitted aurally – one impact being the inevitable lessening of the fixity of the musical text.
53 John Purser, ‘James Oswald: Caledonian Pocket Companion’, The Caledonian Pocket Companion by James Oswald, [4]–[5].
54 Oswald limits himself to only two tempo directions throughout CPC, vol. ii, book 7: ‘slow’ and ‘brisk’, with the addition of ‘tender’ and ‘mod[erately] quick’ in book 6.
55 The English Dancing Master or, Plaine and Easie Rules for the Dancing of Country Dances, with the Tune to Each Dance (London: John Playford, 1651); A Collection of Original Scots Tunes, (Full of the Highland Humours), for the Violin being the First of this Kind Yet Printed: Most of Them Being in the Compass of the Flute (London: Henry Playford, 1700).
56 Caledonian Country Dances, 9 vols. (London: John Walsh, 1733–c.1760).
57 George S. Emmerson, A Social History of Scottish Country Dancing: Ane Celestial Recreatioun (Montreal and London: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1972), 271.
58 See, for example, The Select Melodies of Scotland, Interspersed with Those of Ireland and Wales United to the Songs of Robt. Burns, Sir Walter Scott Bart. and Other Distinguished Poets; with Symphonies and Accompaniments for the Piano Forte by Pleyel, Kozeluch, Haydn and Beethoven, 5 vols. (London: Preston; Edinburgh: George Thomson, 1822–3), cited in Claire Nelson, ‘Creating a Notion of “Britishness”: The Role of Scottish Music in the Negotiation of a Common Culture, with Particular Reference to the 18th Century Accompanied Sonata’ (D.Mus. thesis, Royal College of Music, 2003), 170.
59 Roger Fiske, Scotland in Music: A European Enthusiasm (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 5–6.
60 Mary Anne Alburger, ‘Musical Scots and Scottish Music Patrons in London and Edinburgh’, Scots in London in the Eighteenth Century, ed. Stana Nenadic (Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 2010), 186–203 (p. 191; emphasis added).
61 Others include the music publisher Robert Bremner, the singer William Thomson and the composer Thomas Erskine, sixth Earl of Kellie.
62 Purser, ‘James Oswald: Caledonian Pocket Companion’, [15–18].
63 [Airs for the Seasons], 2 sets of 4 vols. each, published as (1) Airs for Spring and Airs for Summer, and (2) Airs for Autumn and Airs for Winter (London: James Oswald, 1755–61). Purser has demonstrated the symbolic numerological associations of many of the sonatas; see John Purser, Scotland's Music (Edinburgh: Mainstream in conjunction with BBC Scotland, 1992; 2nd edn, Edinburgh: Mainstream, 2007), 156.
64 Matthew Gelbart, The Invention of ‘Folk Music’ and ‘Art Music’: Emerging Categories from Ossian to Wagner (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 239–40.
65 David Johnson, Music and Society in Lowland Scotland in the Eighteenth Century (London: Oxford University Press, 1972), 3–22.
66 Gelbart, The Invention of ‘Folk Music’ and ‘Art Music’, 15.
67 Francesco Geminiani, A Treatise of Good Taste in the Art of Musick Dedicated to His Royal Highness Frederick Prince of Wales (London, 1749).
68 Constant Lambert, Music Ho! A Study of Music in Decline (London: Faber & Faber, 1934), 164.