IranTrumpet The Trumpet Voluntary Author(s): Charles Cudworth and Franklin B. Zimmerman Source: Music & Letters, Vol. 41, No. 4 (Oct., 1960), pp. 342-348 Published by: Oxford University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/733054 Accessed: 26-11-2016 04:51 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms Oxford University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Music & Letters This content downloaded from 188.118.81.43 on Sat, 26 Nov 2016 04:51:10 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms IranTrumpet THE TRUMPET VOLUNTARY CHARLES CUDWORTH & FRANKLIN B. ZIMMERMAN THE tercentenary of Purcell's birth has afforded an excellent oppor- tunity to summarize the known facts about the so-called 'Trumpet Voluntary' which we now know was composed by his younger contemporary Jeremiah Clarke. Year by year the evidence for Clarke's authorship grows stronger, while Purcell's claim recedes. There is no authentic evidence for the Purcellian attribution, whereas a firm ascription to Clarke appears in at least four early sources; there are also several anonymous sources. The most important of the printed sources is 'A Choice Collection of Ayres for the Harpsichord or Spinett' (London, 1700), in which the piece appears on page 13 as 'The Prince of Denmark's March by Mr Clarke' (see the reproduction opposite). The publisher, John Young, was unusually careful in affirming the genuineness of all the pieces in this 'Collection', stating categorically that he had received all the items from the composers themselves (they included Blow, Piggott, Barrett and Croft, as well as Clarke himself, but no members of the Purcell family). There are in all six tunes by Clarke in the 'Collection'. The next printed source also names Clarke as the composer, and again gives the title as 'The Prince of Denmark's March'; it is Walsh's 'The Third Book of the Harpsichord Master Being a Collection of Choice Lessons with Song Tunes and Town Ayres fitted for the Harpsichord or Spinnett' (London, I702). Purcell's name is mentioned in this collection, but only in connection with his 'Plain and Easy Rules for Learners' taken from Henry Playford's 'A Choice Collection of Lessons' of 1696. This version of the 'Trumpet Voluntary' tune corresponds with that in Young's collection, and may very well have been derived from it; both differ markedly in several respects from versions given in the anonymous sources listed below as Nos. 5-7. A third source in manuscript is in some respects the most interesting of all, for it consists of a suite of nine movements included in a set of instrumental part-books now in the British Museum (Add. 30,839 and 30,365-7). These four part-books, labelled simply first treble, second treble, tenor and bass, include a number of 342 This content downloaded from 188.118.81.43 on Sat, 26 Nov 2016 04:51:10 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms IranTrumpet THE TRUMPET VOLUNTARY 343 This content downloaded from 188.118.81.43 on Sat, 26 Nov 2016 04:51:10 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 344 MUSIC AND LETTERS IranTrumpet overtures, suites, dances, etc., by various composers of the late seventeenth century and seem to have been copied out by a foreign musician living in England c. I700: Paisible's name has been suggested, but nothing is known for certain, except that the copyist's spelling of English names is highly eccentric and suggests a foreigner. Even so it is scarcely possible to doubt that the composer whose name he spells variously as Clark, Clarke or even Clairque can be anyone but Jeremiah Clarke, especially when we find that several of the pieces he attributes to this composer are also known under Jeremiah Clarke's name in other sources. The set of nine pieces which he calls 'Suite de Clarke' contains not only the so-called 'Trumpet Voluntary' itself (under the simple title of 'Rondeau') but also the 'Serenade' included under Clarke's name in Young's 'Choice Collection' of I700 and 'The Duke of Gloucester's March', also attributed to Clarke in British Museum, Add. 22,099. The nine numbers of the orchestral 'Suite de Clarke' are as follows: I. [The Duke of Gloucester's March] 2. Minuet 3. Sybil [i.e. Cebell] 4. Rondeau [The Prince of Denmark's March] 5. [Serenade] 6. Bourree 7. Iscossisi [i.e. l&cossais, or Scotch tune] 8. Hornpipe 9. Gigue The four part-books bear various indications of the original orchestration, which probably included solo trumpet, strings, oboes and bassoon. By comparing the orchestral versions with other versions for harpsichord, etc. it is possible to compile a fairly com- prehensive score, although the tenor part is missing for Nos. 7 to 9. It may be, of course, that there never was a tenor part for these last three numbers, as they seem to be in fairly complete three-part harmony. All nine pieces are tuneful and have the same gay extrovert quality which has endeared the 'Trumpet Voluntary' itself to the ears and hearts of thousands of music-lovers. A manuscript recently bequeathed to H. Watkins Shaw provides yet a fourth source, which originated at the beginning of the eighteenth century. This is a pocket-size oblong duodecimo keyboard book signed by the copyist: 'Ce livre apartient a Gm Babel I7oI/ London'. The fact that all the titles and annotations in the book are in French suggests that this may have been the elder William Babel (who was born in France) rather than his more famous son (b. c. I68o), who studied with Pepusch and later published a volume of This content downloaded from 188.118.81.43 on Sat, 26 Nov 2016 04:51:10 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms THE TRUMPET VOLUNTARY 345 IranTrumpet keyboard music in his own name. On fo. I4v Clarke's piece is copied under his name. In the margin it is entitled 'Marche', although the heading itself reads 'Rondeau'. This version differs from that printed by Walsh only in the ornaments indicated, and in a few passages like that just before the da capo, where a few melodic passing notes are omitted. Otherwise, this source is valuable for several new transcriptions for harpsichord from Purcell's incidental music for various plays. It also contains several genuine Purcell compositions, among them his well-known 'Trumpet Tune', the 'Cybil', here appearing under the heading 'Imitation de la descente de Cybelle/H. Purcel'. Besides the above sources, in which Clarke's name is specifically mentioned, there are others in which the piece is quoted anonymously and in each case the melody differs slightly from the first printed edition of I700. The most interesting of these is probably source No. 5, contained in a manuscript harpsichord book in the British Museum (Add. 31,465); it is called simply 'Trumpet Tune', with no composer's name attached. Several slight melodic divergences from sources Nos. I-3, in particular the ornamented version of bar 7, lead one to suspect that this may have been the version used by Spark when he reprinted the piece as 'Purcell's Trumpet Voluntary' in the late nineteenth century. A sixth source is the eleventh edition of 'The Dancing Master', published in I701, one year later than the 'Choice Collection'. Significantly, it does not appear in the pre- 1700 editions. In the 170I edition it is printed as a country-dance tune, called 'The Temple'; only the tune itself is printed, and this with a clumsy variant of bar 4. Bar 7, on the other hand, takes the same shape as that in source No. 5. Source No. 7 comes from an unexpected quarter-John Gay's 'Polly', the sequel to his 'Beggar's Opera'. In 'Polly' the tune serves as finale to the whole opera, associated rather clumsily with the lines: Justice, long forbearing, Pow'r and Riches never fearing, Slow yet persevering, Hunts the villain's pace, etc. Since Gay labelled it 'The Temple', it seems fairly obvious that his source was one of the later editions of 'The Dancing Master'. Source No. 8 also seems to derive from 'The Dancing Master'. It is in a manuscript harpsichord book belonging to Lady Susi Jeans, and is called simply 'A Country Dance', with no composer's name mentioned. Like all the versions derived from 'The Dancing Master', This content downloaded from 188.118.81.43 on Sat, 26 Nov 2016 04:51:10 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 346 MUSIC AND LETTERS IranTrumpet it has the clumsy version of bar 4, accompanied by an equally clumsy bass. How did the tune ever come to be associated with Purcell? It seems to have disappeared from public favour about the middle of the eighteenth century and only reappeared about a century and a quarter later, when it was published by William Spark, the organist of what is now Leeds City Hall. Spark was editor of a serial publication of organ music entitled 'Short Pieces for the Organ', published in London by Ashdown and Parry in the I870's.