Whats the name of that melancholy military tune played by a single trumpet on Remembrance Sunday?
For the Yanks who all say Taps, fine, that might be your Remembrance tune, but Remembrance Sunday IS NOT AMERICAN!! What is played in the UK is the Last Post. It’s one of the most evocative pieces of bugle music in the world, and one of only two pieces of music in the world that bring tears to my eyes. The other is the pipe tune Highland Cathedral.
Last Post is a bugle call used at military funerals and ceremonies commemorating those who have fallen in war. Last Post is used in public ceremonials commemorating the war dead, particularly on Remembrance Day in the Commonwealth of Nations (known as Veterans Day in the United States). In Australia and New Zealand it is also played on ANZAC Day. Since 1928 Last Post has been played every evening by buglers of the local Last Post association at the war memorial at Ieper (Ypres) in Belgium known as the Menin Gate, commemorating the British Empire dead at the Battle of Ypres during the First World War. Last Post was used by British forces in North America in colonial times, but its function was taken over in the United States by Taps, which has been used by the United States Army since 1862.
Taps, “Of all the military bugle calls, none is so easily recognized or more apt to render emotion than the call Taps. The melody is both eloquent and haunting, while the history of its origin is interesting and somewhat clouded in controversy. In the British army, a similar type of signal called Last Post has been sounded over soldiers’ graves since 1885, but the use of Taps is unique to the United States military, since the call is sounded at funerals, wreath-laying ceremonies, and memorial services.
