John Stanley’s tremendous Trumpet Voluntary arranged for Solo Bb Trumpet, Concert Band, and optional Organ.

A stirring arrangement for your next concert, with which to feature your star Trumpeter!

Stanley, who was blind from an early age, studied music with Maurice Greene and held a number of organist appointments in London, such as St Andrew’s, Holborn from 1726. He was a friend of George Frideric Handel, and following Handel’s death, Stanley joined first with John Christopher Smith and later with Thomas Linley to continue the series of oratorio concerts Handel had established, and succeeded him as a governor of the Foundling Hospital (continuing his tradition of performing "Messiah" for them).

In 1779, Stanley succeeded William Boyce as Master of the King’s Musick.

Stanley’s works include the opera Teraminta, the dramatic cantata The Choice of Hercules, twelve other cantatas with texts by John Hawkins, the oratorios Jephtha, The Fall of Egypt and Zimri, and instrumental music, notably three volumes of Voluntaries for organ (1748, 1752, and 1754). Nearly all of the voluntaries feature a short, slow introduction followed by either a solo-stop movement (such as the so called trumpet voluntaries) or a fugue. Some of the former have been arranged in modern times for string chamber orchestra and trumpet.

Surviving pictures of the English composer and organist John Stanley show clearly the effects of a childhood domestic accident that saw him blinded at the age of two.

It is clearly something that never held him back, however, and he became the youngest ever person to get his B.Mus. degree from Oxford University at the age of seventeen. Stanley moved in very auspicious musical circles; he was good friends with Handel, and his teacher, Maurice Greene, was a Master of the King’s Musick.

As well as conducting many of Handel’s British works, he inherited a few London gigs after Handel’s death. These included the oratorio season, which happened around Lent, and the performances of Messiah at the Foundling hospital. Stanley also succeeded William Boyce as Master of the King’s Musick when he was sixty-seven (he lived to the very impressive age of seventy-four).

Stanley was most famous in his lifetime, though, as an organist, proving to be a magnet for organ lovers from miles around at his church, St Andrew’s in London’s Holborn. His three volumes of organ voluntaries (including the tune featured here) are his most popular legacy. So, although we know this piece as the Trumpet Voluntary, it wasn’t really initially intended to be played on a trumpet at all. Surviving pictures of the English composer and organist John Stanley show clearly the effects of a childhood domestic accident that saw him blinded at the age of two.

It is clearly something that never held him back, however, and he became the youngest ever person to get his B.Mus. degree from Oxford University at the age of seventeen. Stanley moved in very auspicious musical circles; he was good friends with Handel, and his teacher, Maurice Greene, was a Master of the King’s Musick.

As well as conducting many of Handel’s British works, he inherited a few London gigs after Handel’s death. These included the oratorio season, which happened around Lent, and the performances of Messiah at the Foundling hospital. Stanley also succeeded William Boyce as Master of the King’s Musick when he was sixty-seven (he lived to the very impressive age of seventy-four).

Stanley was most famous in his lifetime, though, as an organist, proving to be a magnet for organ lovers from miles around at his church, St Andrew’s in London’s Holborn. His three volumes of organ voluntaries (including the tune featured here) are his most popular legacy. So, although we know this piece as the Trumpet Voluntary, it wasn’t really initially intended to be played on a trumpet at all.