EDITOR’S NOTE: This article deals with a historical case involving suicide. If you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts or crisis, call the Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255 or text HOME to the Crisis Text Line at 741741. Alternatively, in the United States, you may dial 988 to be connected to the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.

If you have attended a graduation or wedding ceremony or listened to the BBC World Service, there’s a good chance you have heard “Trumpet Voluntary.” (listen to it here). Also known as the “Prince of Denmark’s March,” it was composed by Jeremiah Clarke around 1700.

The song evokes feelings of joy, optimism, and triumph. Sadly, those qualities were missing in spades within its composer.

Clarke seemed to have all the ingredients for a happy and fulfilling life. He was in his mid-twenties when he earned the coveted position of the first organist at St. Paul’s Cathedral. Later, he was the organist and Master of the Choristers at the Chapel Royal. Despite his tender years, he was well regarded as a talented and accomplished musical artist.

Clarke was anything but happy and fulfilled, however. The thing he desired was the one thing he could not achieve. He fell madly in love. It would seem the object of his desire would be forever out of reach. The stories conflict as to whether his feelings toward her were unreciprocated or if she was way above his social class. Either way, Clarke was filled with despair at the thought of spending his life without her and decided to commit suicide.

Strangely, the decision to end his life was relatively easy. The difficult part was settling on the how. Clarke couldn’t make up his mind whether he should hang or drown himself.

Unable to resolve that important matter, he left it to the hands of fate. Clarke flipped a coin. If it landed on heads, he would take his life one way. Tails, and it would be the other.

One can only imagine his thoughts and feelings as he tossed the coin into the air and watched it spin to the ground. Would it be heads or tails? The noose or the river?

Alas, it was neither. Well, at least he didn’t find the answer. The coin of fate fell into the mud and was lost.

In a better reality, Clarke would have interpreted this turn of events as an indication that his life was too valuable to be thrown away. He did decide that neither hanging or drowning was for him. Sadly, he opted for something other than living.

Clarke went back to his beloved St. Paul’s Cathedral. Taking a pistol, he ended his life with a bullet in the brain. A brilliant and promising life came to an end at the too-early age of thirty-three.

Today, “Trumpet Voluntary” is commonly played at weddings. It was, for example, played in 1981 at the wedding of Prince Charles and Diana. It is unlikely that anyone who was present that day gave any thought to the unhappy ending of the song’s composer. They were too caught up in the celebration and joyful sound of the music to reflect on its composer’s misfortunes.

If anyone had given any thought to Jeremiah Clarke’s tragic end as they listened to “Trumpet Voluntary” on the day of the royal wedding, they might have noted one more sad bit of irony. As the soon-to-be Princess of Wales walked down the aisle to Jeremiah Clarke’s triumphant tune, she walked over the very spot where the heartsick composer took his own life.

Fate can be cruel. Love is sometimes unrequited. Life is always worth living.

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