Jeremiah Clarke

Jeremiah Clarke (c. 1674 - 1 December 1707) was an English baroque composer.

Thought to have been born in London in 1674, Clarke was a pupil of John Blow at St Paul's Cathedral. He later became organist at the Chapel Royal. "A violent and hopeless passion for a very beautiful lady of a rank superior to his own" caused him to commit suicide by shooting himself. Before shooting himself, he also considered hanging himself and drowning himself. He was succeeded in his post by William Croft.

Clarke is now best remembered for a popular keyboard piece, the Prince of Denmark's March, commonly called the Trumpet Voluntary. From c. 1878 until the 1940s it was attributed to Henry Purcell. It was published as "Trumpet Voluntary by Henry Purcell" in William Sparkes's "Short Pieces for the Organ", Book VII, No. 1 (London, Ashdown and Parry). This version came to the attention of Sir Henry J. Wood, who made two orchestral transcriptions of it, both of which were recorded.^[1] This further cemented in the public's mind the erroneous notion that the original piece was by Purcell.

The famous Trumpet Tune in D, also misattributed to Purcell, is actually taken from the semi-opera The Island Princess, a joint musical production of Clarke and Daniel Purcell (Henry Purcell's younger brother), which is probably the reason for the confusion.

Works

• Harpsichord and Organ Music
• Masses and other religious music (including 20 anthems and several odes)
• Prize Piece: Prince of Denmark's March, popularly known as "Trumpet Voluntary", about 1700
• Trumpet Tune in D, from The Island Princess

Notes

External links

• Jeremiah Clarke free scores in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
• Free scores by Jeremiah Clarke in the Werner Icking Music Archive (WIMA)
• Easybyte - free easy piano music for Trumpet Voluntary
• Free scores by Jeremiah Clarke in the International Music Score Library Project