DESCRIPTION:
The Prince of Denmark's March, commonly but erroneously called the Trumpet Voluntary, is a musical composition (a march) written circa. 1700, by English baroque composer Jeremiah Clarke (who was the first organist of the then newly rebuilt St Paul's Cathedral).
For many years the piece was attributed incorrectly to Clarke's elder and more widely known contemporary Henry Purcell. The misattribution emanated from an arrangement for organ published in the 1870s by Dr. William Spark (the town organist of Leeds, England). The arrangement was later adapted by Sir Henry Wood in his well-known arrangement for trumpet, string orchestra, and organ.
The oldest source is a collection of keyboard pieces published in 1700. A contemporary version for wind instruments also survives. According to some sources, the march was written in honour of Prince George of Denmark, the consort of the then Princess, and later Queen, Anne of Great Britain.
The march is popular as wedding music, and was played during the wedding of Lady Diana Spencer and Prince Charles at St Paul's Cathedral in 1981. This selection was almost certainly made because Charles is, by descent, a Prince of the Danish royal house of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Gluecksburg. (Charles's father, Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, was born a Prince of Greece and the Greek royal family is a cadet branch of the Danish one, although by English custom neither Philip nor Charles use their Danish and Greek titles.)
The march was broadcast often by the BBC during World War II, especially when programming was directed to occupied Denmark.
A brief portion of the tune can be heard at the end of the song "Tubthumping" by British anarcho-punk band Chumbawamba and in the fade-out of The Beatles' song "It's All Too Much". It was also one of the seventeen classical pieces used in creating the lead track of the 1981 Hooked on Classics project. It was also the melodic counterpoint to the intro and verses of Sting's hit "All This Time".
The piece is also used on The Colbert Report as the theme for the recurring segments Colbert Platinum (on trumpet) and Colbert Aluminum (on kazoo).
The march is used as the background music during the hourly performance of the Royal Clock in the Queen Victoria Building, Sydney, Australia.
The song was also sampled for the Greatest Thing Ever segment from the Cartoon Network show Mad.