Jeremiah Clarke (I)

CLARKE, Jeremiah (I). b. ca. 1674; d. London, 1 December 1707. He was a chorister of the Chapel Royal from about 1685 to 1692, and a pupil of John Blow (1648/9–1708). He was organist of Winchester College 1692–5, of St Paul’s Cathedral from 1699, and of the Chapel Royal from 1704. He was a prolific and successful composer of both sacred and secular music. His ever-popular ‘Trumpet Voluntary’ originated as a harpsichord piece called ‘The Prince of Denmark’s March’; the trumpet was introduced only in an early-20th-century arrangement by Sir Henry Wood. Along with other leading composers of the day, Clarke was tapped by the publisher Henry Playford* for his book The Divine Companion (1701),...