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Jeremiah Clarke

 
Music Encyclopedia: Jeremiah Clarke
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(b c 1674; d London, 1 Dec 1707). English composer and organist. He was a chorister at the Chapel Royal in the 1680s, then was organist at Winchester College (c 1692-1695) and in 1699 became vicar-choral and organist of St Paul's Cathedral, London, advancing to Master of the Choristers in 1703. He was also a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal and from 1704 joint organist with Croft. He is thought to have committed suicide because of an unhappy love affair with a pupil of noble birth. Clarke is best known as a composer of the Trumpet Voluntary, long attributed to Purcell, but now known to be ‘The Prince of Denmark's March’ from an anthology of harpsichord music (1700); it also appears in a suite for wind instruments. His other works include some services and c 20 anthems (mostly fairly slight), a number of odes for court occasions and other celebrations, and a quantity of songs and interludes for the theatre, which, along with his harpsichord pieces, best show his pleasing and tuneful style, not reflecting the ‘melancholy cast’ ascribed to him by contemporaries nor indeed the circumstances of his own death.


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Artist: Jeremiah Clarke
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  • Period: Baroque (1600-1749)
  • Born: ca. 1674 in London, England
  • Died: December 01, 1707 in London, England
  • Genres: Chamber Music

Biography

Jeremiah Clarke was a popular composer and organist around the dawn of the eighteenth century, but his best-known piece was known for years as "Purcell's Trumpet Voluntary" -- and later as the "Masterpiece Theater Theme."

The man whose music has been played at more nuptials in the English-speaking world than anyone but Wagner or Mendelssohn has no clearly established early history. In 1940 a researcher named E.H. Fellowes tentatively linked him to a family of choir singers at St George's Chapel, Windsor.

The earliest thing we really know about Clarke is that he was a boy choir singer in the Chapel Royal at the time of the coronation of James II. His voice changed in 1692; in that year he became the organist of Winchester College. He left there in 1696, and reappears in the record on June 6, 1699, when he was appointed a vicar-choral of St Paul's Cathedral, London. He received some promotions and titles, and in 1704 took the position of organist of the Chapel Royal, jointly with William Croft.

He wrote attractive and popular theater pieces, many effective anthems, and other sacred music, and some harpsichord pieces including The Prince of Denmark's March, which is the proper name for the piece of worldwide fame known as the Trumpet Voluntary. (The work itself has an interesting history. Its familiar trumpet, organ, and drum arrangement is of contemporary origin, but was inspired by a nineteenth century organ version that ascribed the tune to Henry Purcell, at the time one of the few names known to posterity from the then-shadowy Baroque era.)

Accounts of Clarke's life suggest that he was subject to periods of deep depression. He shot himself and was buried in the crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral. ~ Joseph Stevenson, All Music Guide
Wikipedia: Jeremiah Clarke
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Jeremiah Clarke (c. 1674  – 1 December 1707) was an English baroque composer.

Thought to have been born in London around 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. Before shooting himself, he considered hanging and drowning as options, so to decide his fate, he tossed a coin—however the coin landed in the mud on its side. Instead of consoling himself, he chose the third method of death, and performed the deed in the cathedral churchyard.[1] Suicides were not generally granted burial in consecrated ground, but an exception was made for Clarke, who was buried in the crypt of St Paul's Cathedral[2] (though other sources state he was buried in the unconsecrated section of the cathedral churchyard[3]). He was succeeded in his post by William Croft.

Clarke is best remembered for a popular keyboard piece: the Prince of Denmark's March, which is commonly called the Trumpet Voluntary. From c. 1878 until the 1940s the work was attributed to Henry Purcell, and 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.[4] The recordings further cemented the erroneous notion that the original piece was by Purcell.

The famous Trumpet Tune in D (also incorrectly attributed to Purcell), was taken from the semi-opera The Island Princess which was a joint musical production of Clarke and Daniel Purcell (Henry Purcell's younger brother)—probably leading to the confusion.

Works

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

Notes

  1. ^ Piggott, Solomon (1824). "Remarkable Modes of Suicide". Suicide and its antidotes: a series of anecdotes and actual narratives, with suggestions on mental distress. J. Robins and Co.. p. 175. http://books.google.com/books?id=1JcDAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA173&lpg=PA173. Retrieved August 4, 2009. 
  2. ^ http://www.classical.com/composer/Jeremiah_Clarke
  3. ^ http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=9916703
  4. ^ Grove V, Vol. VIII, "Trumpet Voluntary"

External links

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