The reason national anthems are almost always orchestral lies in the era before recorded and amplified sound, readers have told the Guardian’s long-running question-and-answer series, replying to a query posed by Ross Gomes by email.
The question asked why brass and strings came to stand for a country’s identity, who decided it, and where the power-pop or folk alternatives are.
Reader leadballoon said most long-established anthems were composed before recorded and amplified music existed, and were typically performed outdoors or in large halls. Those settings, the reader argued, effectively demanded large numbers of portable instruments. An anthem that could not be played by a military band with a heavy complement of brass players would not have survived long, leadballoon wrote.
Dorkalicious said anthems generally pre-date the electronic and digital ages, meaning they were played on traditional woodwind, stringed and drummed instruments. Most also carry words so that they can be sung by the faithful and the inexperienced alike, the reader added. On that basis, Dorkalicious argued that many national anthems sound poor to modern listeners, independent of questions about their suitability in an internationalist, secular and increasingly postcolonial world. The same reader singled out Niger’s L’Honneur de la Patrie (2023) as a piece that would not be out of place as the theme to a grand science-fiction film, and described Syria’s still-unofficial Fi Sabili al-Majd (2024) as perky and evocative of a whimsical late-1800s western caper, suggesting it should replace Himat ad-Diyar.
unclestinky attributed the pattern to the weight of convention alone.
Keith Barnes disputed the orchestral framing, saying the works are usually harmonically choral, with four parts for soprano, alto, tenor and bass. Melodically, Barnes said, Britain’s own anthem is deliberately as simple as possible so untrained crowds can join in unison, and its monosyllabic words in God Save the King come from the King James Bible. Barnes identified La Marseillaise, dating from the French Revolution, as the first modern anthem.
Goldgreen asked instead why some anthems are so poor, drawing a contrast between God Save the King, described as a dirge, and La Marseillaise, which the reader said inspires a march to the barricades.
superspartan noted that anthems written for strings or brass are not confined to those instruments in performance, citing Jimi Hendrix’s version of The Star-Spangled Banner as a better representation of the United States at the time than any orchestral recital, and possibly even more so now.
alexito said the compositions are no more orchestral than Greensleeves, the Londonderry Air or Abide With Me. Many have military origins suited to mobile groups carrying acoustic brass, pipes and drums, the reader wrote, while others derive from folk song, court dances and religious hymns, with most European languages using a form of the word hymn, meaning song of praise, for anthem. The American anthem began as a drinking song and the Chinese one as a film theme, according to alexito.
Randomusername222 noted that Flower of Scotland was written in the 1960s and narrowly lost a vote at Holyrood to become the Scottish anthem. It is usually performed by a pipe band or a large ensemble choir of football fans, the reader said, adding that an orchestral version is rarely heard.
walpole6 recalled that Billy Connolly suggested the theme tune to The Archers would make a great national anthem, and said that is what the reader now hears whenever the UK’s anthem is played, since a national anthem is essentially a country’s theme tune. The same reader argued the UK anthem fails to mention the country, its features or its people, apart from its treatment of the Scots, and said it drones on about a super-rich welfare claimant with poorly diversified genes.
The Guardian noted that the series invites readers to answer one another’s questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical concepts, and that this week’s question is why a child saying “Na-na, na-na-na!” is so annoying.
COMMENTS