Prince of Denmark's March

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The Prince of Denmark's March, commonly, though erroneously, known as the Trumpet Voluntary, is a work by Jeremiah Clarke, composed around 1699. Clarke was the first organist of the then newly rebuilt St. Paul's Cathedral.

For many years, the piece was incorrectly attributed to his elder, and more widely-known, contemporary, Henry Purcell, who was organist of Westminster Abbey. The misattribution emanated from an arrangement for organ, that was published in the 1870s by a Dr. William Spark, then town organist of Leeds. It was later adopted by Sir Henry Wood in his well-known arrangement for trumpet, string orchestra and organ.

The oldest source is a collection of keyboard pieces published in 1700. A contemporary version for wind instruments also survives.^[1] According to some sources, the march was originally written in honour of George, Prince of Denmark, the consort of the then Princess, later Queen Anne of Great Britain.

The march is very popular as wedding music^[2] (it was played during the wedding of Lady Diana Spencer and Prince Charles in St Paul's Cathedral) and was often broadcast by the BBC during World War II, especially when broadcasting to occupied Denmark. It is also used as the march of the Nobel prize laureates at the Nobel ceremonies in Stockholm on December 10th.

A brief portion of the tune can be heard at the end of the Chumbawumba song, "Tubthumping", and also during the fade-out of the Beatles songs, "All You Need Is Love" and "It's All Too Much".

[edit] Notes

^ Randel, Don Michael (1996). The Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music, p. 164. Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674372999.
^ Bride Magazine, Inc. (2003). Bride's Book of Etiquette, p. 231. New York: The Berkley Publishing Group. ISBN 0399528660.

[edit] References

Cudworth, CL (1953). "Some New Facts About the Trumpet Voluntary". The Musical Times 94 (1327): pp. 401-403. London: Novello & Co. ISSN 00274666. OCLC 53165808.