Handel - Music for the Royal Fireworks - Royal College of Surgeons

9 December 2021, 16:30

I played first trumpet for the Installation of the President of the Royal College of Surgeons on Thursday 9th December 2021. The Installation took place at the Royal College of Surgeons of England at Lincoln’s Inn Fields in London.

Prior to the ceremony, the oboists and bassoonists played sonatas and concerti by Prowo and Corelli. The procession, led by a mace-bearer, was accompanied by Handel’s La Réjouissance and the Ouverture was played at the end of the ceremony. The orchestra was Instruments of Time & Truth, which was directed from the oboe by Mark Radcliffe. We performed in the large atrium of this architecturally impressive building.

I had the opportunity to view the highly ornate mace briefly, after the ceremony, and was impressed by the engraving and the insignia of King George IV. Their Royal Charter was granted on 13th February 1822. I walked back towards Farmington railway station through Hatton Garden, and could hear the tink, tink, tink of the repoussé hammers in this, the jewellery epicentre of London. After I became interested in engraving, while staying with Graham Nicholson in The Hague, I attended an engraving workshop in this area of London, and I have been engraving trumpet garlands ever since.

Russell Gilmour

writing on music, photography, engraving, travel and life as a freelance professional musician.

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