A couple of weeks ago, I was asked to put on a concert with under a weeks notice. In my desperation I decided to invite every trumpeter at Royal Holloway University of London to perform. Thankfully the concert was very well attended and a huge success - featuring the premier performance of the Royal Holloway Trumpet Trio, three soloists, and a ensemble of eight trumpeters to finish! This arrangement of Clarke’s Trumpet Voluntary (Prince of Denmark’s March) was used as the finale. It is scored for piccolo trumpet in Bb, six Bb trumpets and Bb Flugelhorn. The piccolo trumpet solo is reminiscent of Maurice Andre’s performance of the same piece, whilst the very lowest octave of the flugelhorn (this is actually a playable range, as opposed to pedal tones - the flugelhorn has playable notes between written C and Fsharp an octave below the standard Bb range, hence why some soloists such as Sergei Narkaiakov choose to use a fourth valve to bridge the gap) is used to strengthen the bass line and specific points. This arrangement would also work for Bb Clarinets, with a Bass Clarinet playing the Flugelhorn part, as part of an unusual clarinet choir piece.

For anyone who wishes to buy… I can send you a link to a video of this piece in performance, please feel free to contact me with any queries.