Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr K
Don't the Germans have a cracking national anthem ? Nearly as good as the Welsh one. The French and Italians have it sorted too.
Why is England's so crap? Should be Jerusalem or Land of Hope and Glory.
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Ironically the
Austria hymn tune the Germans use as their national anthem is an adaptation by Haydn of a Croatian folk tune.
It's a common hymn tune over here, so much that during the war, the BBC commissioned another tune to be used instead by a contemporary composer so that the hymn could be sung without the connotations of it also being the German national anthem.
No-one knows who wrote GSTK/Q, either lyrics or the tune; at one point it was thought that the tune was Thomas Arne's (similar to Rule Britannia) but some now think (ironically, as he was also of German extraction) that it was actually by Handel (controls over attribution were lax and there was ofc no copyright in those days). What I find offputting about it (even as an agnostic who works in church music) is that the focus of it isn't on the monarch, not at least in the first verse (there are 2 or 3 in most editions but originally loads more), but actually on God, which fits less well in the more secular/multi-faith society we are in now. I do like the idea of Jerusalem. It's a cracking tune by Parry (as is the Elgar Pomp & Circumstance march 1) but I don't think Blake was entirely being serious or devotional when writing the poem, which may make it seem jingoistic but in reality perhaps not.
So who really knows. I guess the reason why we're still using it is that no-one really likes (universally) the other main alternatives.