Geoffrey Mogridge reviews The Trumpets Shall Sound which was at St Margaret’s Church, Ilkley on Saturday 7 June 2025.
This singularly unusual event, meticulously choreographed to every last detail by Geoff Cloke, packed twenty short pieces into a two-hour long concert.
In the interests of textural variety, music mainly for trumpet ensembles of varying size was interspersed with items for organ, voice and solo piano.
The lofty ambience of St Margaret’s with its immense timbered roof and restored parquet flooring forms a natural acoustic environment for the sound of trumpets. Not just one, two or three, but up to eight of the gleaming brass instruments sounding in unison. And there was more - Christopher Rathbone, director of music at St Margaret’s was on hand to show off the mighty Hill Organ in works by Olivier Messiaen, Louis Vierne and Percy Whitlock - his Exultemus, Sketches on verses from the Psalms.
The evening’s thoughtfully curated programme was based partly on the traditional association of the trumpet with its military accompaniment, the timpani. Pieces included Johann Ernst Altenburg’s Concerto for Clarini & Timpani, and Heinrich Biber’s Sonata for Six Trumpets, Timpani & Basso Continuo as well as Geoff Cloke’s Sonata for Four Trumpets & Organ. Composer Andrew Wilson was present to acknowledge the applause for his City under the Sea, for Four Trumpets, plus the thrilling sound of his Octiphony for Eight Trumpets.
There were brief but spectacular Fanfares by Richard Wagner (Four Trumpets), Michael Tippett (Three) plus Edmund Rubbra’s Fanfare for Europe (Six) and William Walton’s A Birthday Fanfare (Seven Trumpets). An appreciative audience had only a tantalising flavour of the tonal purity of soprano Leo Lord-Cloke - daughter of Geoff. Leo sang Le Colibri by Ernest Chausson, accompanied on the piano by Anthony Gray, and Geoffrey Burgon’s Nunc Dimittis, partnered by Geoff (trumpet). Leo had valiantly insisted on singing, despite battling laryngitis.
An enjoyable and enlightening evening ended in resonating style with Heinrich Biber’s ‘Sancta Polycarpi’ for Eight Trumpets, conducted by Anthony Gray.
The trumpeters were: Jason Camilleri, Geoff Cloke, Lucca Fairhurst, Chris Lewis, Brian Moore, Jamie O’Brien, Paul Thomas, Robert Webb and Jules Wightman, with timpanist Tomasz McCormick. Anthony Gray conducted all the larger trumpet ensemble pieces.
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