Richard Mowat
Encyclopedia
Richard Mowat or Mowatt was a renowned and award-winning player of the Northumbrian smallpipes
.
.
Mowat, like Tom Clough
, had studied the pipes with Thomas Todd
, but he had a very different style from the Cloughs' close-fingered playing. He had, contrastingly, an unusual fingering style, occasionally lifting several fingers at a time, and sometimes his entire right hand, particularly on long notes in slow airs, such as Roslin Castle. He was evidently not penalised in competitions for this, as he would be today.
Mowat was chairman of the Northumbrian Pipers' Society from 1933 until his death in 1936. He was also regarded by his contemporaries as an expert reedmaker.
Northumbrian smallpipes
The Northumbrian smallpipes are bellows-blown bagpipes from the North East of England.In a survey of the bagpipes in the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford University, the organologist Anthony Baines wrote: It is perhaps the most civilized of the bagpipes, making no attempt to go farther than the...
.
Biography
A miner, born in Backworth in 1865, Mowat won the Northumbrian Smallpipes Society's piping competitions for three successive years 1894-6, and was subsequently barred from competitions. That society was short-lived, between 1893 and about 1899. In this period it awarded two pipers its Gold Medal; one was Mowat, and the other was Henry CloughTom Clough
Tom Clough , known as 'The Prince of Pipers', was an English player of the Northumbrian pipes, or Northumbrian smallpipes. He had studied the instrument with the noted piper Thomas Todd, and from his own father Henry Clough...
.
Mowat, like Tom Clough
Tom Clough
Tom Clough , known as 'The Prince of Pipers', was an English player of the Northumbrian pipes, or Northumbrian smallpipes. He had studied the instrument with the noted piper Thomas Todd, and from his own father Henry Clough...
, had studied the pipes with Thomas Todd
Thomas Todd (piper)
Thomas Todd was a noted player of the Northumbrian smallpipes.He was a miner, from Choppington, Northumberland, and taught the pipers Richard Mowat and Tom Clough to play....
, but he had a very different style from the Cloughs' close-fingered playing. He had, contrastingly, an unusual fingering style, occasionally lifting several fingers at a time, and sometimes his entire right hand, particularly on long notes in slow airs, such as Roslin Castle. He was evidently not penalised in competitions for this, as he would be today.
Mowat was chairman of the Northumbrian Pipers' Society from 1933 until his death in 1936. He was also regarded by his contemporaries as an expert reedmaker.