I also performed Jeremiah Clarke’s Trumpet Tune in D major from The Island Princess, a work Clarke produced in conjunction with Daniel Purcell in 1699. It was wonderful to play the trumpet in the quire of the cathedral and to hear my sound reverberating around the dome in this generous and intriguing acoustic. Much of our discussion centred on the music scene of late seventeenth-century London and the trumpeters of that time, in particular John Shore (c.1662–1752).

We touched on Clarke’s Trumpet Tune, as well as his ‘Prince of Denmark’s March’, and the ambiguity of this repertoire: whether these trumpet tunes were conceived for the keyboard in imitation of the trumpet (possibly using a trumpet registration on the organ), or genuinely intended for trumpeters themselves. We also discussed the misattribution of some of Clarke’s music to Henry Purcell, and possible reasons for this.

I mentioned Purcell’s ‘Sound the Trumpet’ from Come Ye Sons of Art (1694), which features a countertenor duet written in a trumpet-like style and a linguistically punning nod to John Shore and his brother William: this work includes various movements for two trumpets, but the brothers would have sat silently in this movement. Henry Purcell gave a punning nod to this in the lyrics: ‘Sound the trumpet till around … You make the listening shores rebound’. Hannah and I also discussed Henry Purcell’s King Arthur (1691) and Daniel Purcell’s The Judgment of Paris (1701); both were represented with recordings, the latter featuring William Russell and myself playing with Spiritato. These are fascinating works that were written and sung in English, before George Frideric Handel first came to London and revolutionised the scene. Music sung in Italian and written in an Italian style would soon become ubiquitous in London.

It was a pleasure to meet Ben Collingwood and Hannah French. Hannah and I even managed a neatly orchestrated book swap: I gave her a signed copy of ‘Just’ Natural Trumpet, and she kindly gave me a signed copy of her most recent book, The Rolling Year: Listening to the Seasons with Vivaldi (2025).