MUSIC is powerful, for it can beguile, annoy or inspire. One sentiment it readily inspires is patriotism—pride and love for one’s country. Thus, the world has followed Britain in adopting national anthems —a musical coat of arms, trademark or aural flag—for use on state occasions, sporting competition or in war. God Save the King will be the musical cynosure of Charles III’s coronation.
Such anthems were rare outside England when, in April 1792, Claude-Joseph Rouget de Lisle, 31, a French army captain, heard the mayor of Strasbourg lament the lack of a good revolutionary song. De Lisle, a man of action, overnight wrote words and music for a ‘chant de guerre’ for the army of the Rhine. An instant success (which saved him from the guillotine), it was christened La Marseillaise when adopted by Provençal irregulars marching to storm the Tuileries. It is a ferocious call to war. ‘Aux armes, citoyens… let the impure blood of our enemies water the furrows of our land.’ Although not perhaps what might be expected from a country of quiet cafés and ubiquitous romance, it is the epitome of a rousing national anthem—ideal preliminary to a rugby match or bayonet charge. Napoleon Bonaparte banned it as unsuitably Republican.
Countries emerging from dismantled empires in the 19th and 20th centuries acquired anthems almost as national birth certificates. Now more than 200, they vary remarkably in style and merit, often favouring what Fanny Burney called ‘the delusive seduction of martial music’. Fatherlands, motherlands and homelands without gender utilise opera- tic marches, hymns, odes to natural beauty or melodic history lessons. Moving or turgid, ecstatic or sanguinary, some confirm, others contradict, their nation’s character.
Esta historia es de la edición April 26, 2023 de Country Life UK.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor ? Conectar
Esta historia es de la edición April 26, 2023 de Country Life UK.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor? Conectar
Happiness in small things
Putting life into perspective and forces of nature in farming
Colour vision
In an eye-baffling arrangement of geometric shapes, a sinister-looking clown and a little girl, Test Card F is one of television’s most enduring images, says Rob Crossan
'Without fever there is no creation'
Three of the top 10 operas performed worldwide are by the emotionally volatile Italian composer Giacomo Puccini, who died a century ago. Henrietta Bredin explains how his colourful life influenced his melodramatic plot lines
The colour revolution
Toxic, dull or fast-fading pigments had long made it tricky for artists to paint verdant scenes, but the 19th century ushered in a viridescent explosion of waterlili
Bullace for you
The distinction between plums, damsons and bullaces is sweetly subtle, boiling down to flavour and aesthetics, but don’t eat the stones, warns John Wright
Lights, camera, action!
Three remarkable country houses, two of which have links to the film industry, the other the setting for a top-class croquet tournament, are anything but ordinary
I was on fire for you, where did you go?
In Iceland, a land with no monks or monkeys, our correspondent attempts to master the art of fishing light’ for Salmo salar, by stroking the creases and dimples of the Midfjardara river like the features of a loved one
Bravery bevond belief
A teenager on his gap year who saved a boy and his father from being savaged by a crocodile is one of a host of heroic acts celebrated in a book to mark the 250th anniversary of the Royal Humane Society, says its author Rupert Uloth
Let's get to the bottom of this
Discovering a well on your property can be viewed as a blessing or a curse, but all's well that ends well, says Deborah Nicholls-Lee, as she examines the benefits of a personal water supply
Sing on, sweet bird
An essential component of our emotional relationship with the landscape, the mellifluous song of a thrush shapes the very foundation of human happiness, notes Mark Cocker, as he takes a closer look at this diverse family of birds