Olga Rudge - Legacy

Legacy

Rudge was fiercely proud to have always been financially independent of Pound, and continued her career as concert violinist until the Second World War. Her advocacy of the works of Vivaldi, which included publishing a catalogue of his works and an article in the Grove Dictionary of Music, did much to establish his modern day popularity. She discovered and publicised 309 Vivaldi concertos which had either been lost or forgotten. However, it is as Pound's muse, mistress, and champion that she is chiefly remembered today. Anne Conover's book Olga Rudge and Ezra Pound (2001) is one of the few to credit Rudge for her own endeavours as well as her role of muse to Ezra Pound. Shortly before his death, Pound wrote of Rudge "There is more courage in Olga's little finger than in the whole of my carcass ... she kept me alive for ten years, for which no one will thank her. The true story will not be told until her version is known".