OUR NATIONAL ANTHEM

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 10, 6 October 1917, Page 7

OUR NATIONAL ANTHEM

ITS HISTORY

•SOMETHING OF ITS ORIGIN

(By "Sylvius.")

■At last-week's Second Division League Conference, Mr. J...Gilohrist.(a Gisborne. • delegate) attempted to make a, protest against the singing of the National Anthem on the score that some authorities held that-the-tune was originally German. That there are German words set ••to the air is just as well known perhaps as that there is an American national eong ("Mr. Country Tis. of Thee") with the same melody. But to get back to the; origin, one must refer to authorities. "Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians"'.states that the first public performance' bf the present National Anthem was at a dinner given' in' celebration of the.taking of Portobello by Admiral Vernon in 1740, when it n:as sung bv Henry.Carey as his own composition (words and mtisic).' Carey is "given the credit of both by J. Christopher Smith,, amanuensis to- Handel, and by Dr. Harrington; but for the full evidence the reader is referred. to ■ Mr. Chnppell 3 full etatement in his -'-'Popular Music,"' and to Crysander's "Jahrbiicher." I'ive. years after Carey is supposed to hav.e .sung the eong at the baiiqnet it beenme known by its-performance at theatres as a-X™ l son? or anthem" during the-Scottish rebellion. The Pretender was proclaimed at • Edinburgh on September 16, 1745, and the first appearance of "God Save OuKhing was at Drury Lane, London, on October--18 'of the same- year. For a, month or 60 it was much sung at -Covent Garden and' Dfury Lane. -Burney harmonised it for the former, and Arne for the totter. Both words and music were printed, lie latter in its present form by the OentlejnanVMagazine'"in October, 1715. Regarding the claim of Dr. Jan Bull to the authorship, Sir George Grove al. tides to an "Ayre" attributed to Bull dated a= far back" as 1619. The manuscript was then (18S0) in the hands of a- Mrs, .Clark, but a-tr'ariseript-of the musicshows'that though ,there- is-a general likeness in form-to the-Anthem, the melody.is sub■efantially .different," and through being written in a minor key the effect u altoeetlier.diffprent:"'"-. . ■ '.' . . . •A' Scotch'caTol; "Eemember. 0 Thou Man," from. Raxenscroft's "Melismota, is sometimes claimed in Scotland as the origin of ''God: Save the lying," but litre again thc.aietre only, w the same. Iho •carol'is'in the minor.key.. The date ot the : carol :i s 1611. It in akin to the present melody of. the Anthem, but.precedes Jan Bull's "Ayre" by .eight years. If the-charge were made that Bull ft-nnd-ed biff "Ayre"' on the Scotch carol, it • would be-more easily sustained than nny claim- he might have to be the real anthor of the Anthem as we _ know it. Another ballad was written in the same -metre—it followed the stneral melodic form,- but was written in the kty of' - G ' This was entitled ','Franklm ■Iβ Fled Away." It was first printed in 1669. Thirty years later Henry Pureell ■wrote (in the same key as'the ballad) an air for the. harpsichord or spinet bearing-a strong family likeness.to the examples that have been quoted. Both the words and the nraaic have been considerably ante-dated. They have been called "the very words and inusio of an old anthem that was siimr.nt or. Jam.ee's Chapel for King James II L>r Arne' is'reported to have eaid that.it wae a generally received opinion-that it j was written for the 'Roman Catholic chapel of James 11. That is the. date given it by Burney in ; Bee's "Eucyelo-j paedia," and Dr. Benjamin Cooke 1-aU heard it sung to the words, 'Great lames, Our King," but as Cooke was not born until 1734 his .Tallies must have been "the Pretender." And as to the Boman-Catholic chapel of James 11, it must have been sung in Latin of winch, no traces are to be found. The .tune nuicklv"crossed the Channel, but Lully s claim "to the'air being-French -is considered a. mere notion. It was .employed, in-.the Danish national air to '.words which aftenv.ards:.:becanie.. 'Heuidir im Siegerkranz" (1790). and became, known as a'Volkslied '(folk song) in Germany, ■where., it .." first '. appeared .in. the "Spemersche Zeitung" of December l<, 1793, and both words and music afterwards became the Prussian, and even tiie German, national hymn, -antil the Int-er was supplanted during the 1 ranco-'jer-man war by the more popular Watch, on'the : Rhine," now accepted as the German National Anthem and played ns such by Germany's Army and INiavyThe' air was a favourite with "Weber (who installed it in his cantata "Kampf ■und Sieg" and his "Juliet and Beethoven (who, wrote seven variations of the melody 'for the piano and used it in his "Battle Symphony"). In Beethoven's journal he wrote, , apropos of the Symphony—"l must show the English a little what a blessing they have in 'God Save the King.'" Thereby we have Germany's /aid the world's greatest composer admitting the English origin of the- National Anthem. ' From the foregoing one may conclude that the air is one of those master melodies which were born in medieval times, and that it gradually.evolved into its present form until sung by Henry Carey in 1740 at the banquet to .Admiral Vernoji, -for previous to that date there does not appear to be any record of the air as we know it. As'to whether Carey -wrote the air that he sang,'it is difficult to eay, but in view of any definite evidence, to the. contrary his claim holds r,. though it. must be admitted that basis of the air was' floating round in a. nebulous stale over a century before his tune;. ■■■■■■■■