Composition - - American Recorder Society
Trumpet Tune from The Island Princess
By Jeremiah Clarke 1700
 Arranged By Keith Terrett 2022
 
S S A T B/Cb Timpani
 
 
The famous Prince of Denmark's March arranged for Recorder Quintet.

This work was mis-attributed to Henry Purcell for many years. Research by music scholars has revealed it was composed by the blind Jeremiah Clarke.

It is more commonly called the Trumpet Voluntary, was written around 1700 by the English composer Jeremiah Clarke, the first organist of the then newly-rebuilt St Paul's Cathedral.

For many years the piece was attributed incorrectly to Clarke's elder and more widely known contemporary Henry Purcell. The misattribution emanated from an arrangement for organ published in the 1870s by William Spark (the town organist of Leeds, England). It was later arranged for several different ensembles by Sir Henry Wood.

The oldest source is A Choice Collection of Ayres, a collection of keyboard pieces published in 1700. A contemporary version for wind instruments also survives. According to some sources, the march was written in honour of Prince George of Denmark, husband of Queen Anne of Great Britain.

Clarke also composed "King William's March" in honour of Prince George's brother-in-law William III.

Popular as wedding music, the march was played during the wedding of Lady Diana Spencer and Prince Charles at St Paul's Cathedral in 1981 and during the wedding of Prince Joachim of Denmark and Alexandra Manley in 1995.

The march was broadcast often by BBC Radio during World War II, especially when programming was directed to occupied Denmark, since the march symbolised a connection between those two countries. The broadcasts were introduced by the first bars of the tune voiced over by the words "Her er London. BBC sender til Danmark." ("This is London. BBC is broadcasting to Denmark.") In Denmark the march thus became strongly associated with the opposition to Nazi occupation and propaganda. It is still performed during the annual celebrations of the liberation. For many years, the Trumpet Voluntary remained the European Service signature tune of the BBC World Service.

It is the corps march, both slow and quick, of the British Army's Royal Army Chaplains' Department.

A variant of the tune is used in the final chorus of John Gay's ballad opera, Polly, (premiered 1777), where the original is called 'The Temple'.
-- Keith Terrett
 
 
This SSATB/Cb piece will be instantly familiar to all who play it. The trumpet parts are in the 2 Soprano lines, with the lower parts maintaining a suitably pompous air and occasional commentary. The bottom part is labeled Contrabass, but a regular F Bass or a C Bass reading down the octave (only a couple notes are below range) work just as well if your group doesn’t have the Contrabass. Some 16ths and arpeggiated triplet figures account for most of the technical difficulty, especially if the tempo is a true “Presto”. A Timpani part is also provided, adding lots of fun percussion possibilities.
-- Glen Shannon
 
 
No. of Recorder Parts:
5
Difficulty:
Challenging
Occasion:
Any
Libraries:
Arrangements and Transcriptions
Date Added:
08/05/2022
Style:
Concert, Fast/Up-tempo, Tonal/Melodic, Renaissance/Baroque/Classical