National Anthems
Feb. 13th, 2010 06:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fpbIn my childhood in Italy, I was more than once informed that our national anthem is hopelessly tasteless and ugly, and that it ought to be changed. No sooner had I gone to study in England, that I was told the very same thing about "God Save the Queen". You can see the point. It is, at least, possible to suspect that, behind supposed aesthetic criteria, there may lurk some political or trans-political judgment, and that, rather than judging the tunes as one would judge the Beatles or even Kylie Minogue, one may in fact be rejecting an image of one's nation, or even the nation itself. Disaffection with the image and reality of Italy was rife in the seventies as I grew up, and has not altogether died out yet; and the poor old Anthem of Mameli, in my view, was a victim of it.
There certainly are national anthems that are boring or bad. The only thing I do not like about Australia - otherwise one of my favourite countries - is the dull anthem it gave itself via a competition, with its incredibly fatuous chorus "Advance Australia Fair", which sounds like a corporate name. Had they waited a few years, they could at least have taken the Seekers' lovely "I am Australian", which has a lot more to say about the country. And the USA, sorry my friends, but don't have a particularly good item either. Francis Scott Keys' words are not bad; at least, they form a coherent poem. But the music, taken from an eighteenth-century drinking song, is to my ear simply cold and artificial. Even without mentioning the magnificent Battle Hymn of the Republic - which probably could not have been used on account of its origins in civil war - "America the Beautiful" would have been better.
At least the tune of Anacreon in Heaven is typical of one aspect of American attitudes: the ceremonial, neoclassical, Age of Enlightenment conduct that America loves especially in its public bodies. Spain, on the other hand, simply has an inadequate anthem - a wordless march that happened to please an eighteenth-century king, and that might well do as a regimental march, but never as the musical symbol of a nation. If you heard it without knowing what it was, you would believe neither that it is a national anthem, nor that it is the anthem of that particular country, with that history. The German anthem spoils a noble and beautiful tune, composed by one of the greatest musicians in history on purpose to be the anthem of his country, with words of exceptional lack of grace and taste. The first verse, calling for Germany to be above everything else in the world and ascribing borders to it that are now found in France, Russia, Denmark and Italy, has long been felt to to be offensive, and dropped; but it is the second verse that really show a vulgarity of mind that takes one's breath away. No other country would have placed "German women, German loyalty, German wine and German song" in a national anthem or made them a reason to live or die for a country. Loyalty, perhaps; the rest belong in the repertory of barroom songs. The infelicity of the expression is incredible, and no wonder that this embarrassing stanza has fallen under the same proscription as the first. The only stanza now sung is the innocuous third, expressing feelings to which anyone could subscribe - "Unity, justice and freedom, for the German fatherland - to this purpose let us struggle, brothers all with heart and hand - Unity, justice and freedom, on them happiness is founded - blossom in the light of this happiness, blossom, German fatherland!". Not exactly great poetry, but decent and worthwhile feelings for any nation. But what a damned waste of Haydn's majestic song!
The best national anthems have this in common, that they have been taken up more or less by popular will and without need of any official enactment or competition. And as such, we may say that they say something about the nations that chose them. So, for instance, was the beautiful national anthem of Wales, appearing out of nowhere in particular at the beginnings of the twentieth century, and redolent at once of the great choral tradition of Welsh chapels, of the noble mountain landscape of the little country, and of the special character of the Welsh language, capable of amazing and almost Latin conciseness. The Russian anthem is a partial exception: created by order of Stalin, it was nonetheless kept by popular desire after the Soviet Union and communism had both died. To my ear it has lots in common with the anthems of England and Holland. They all express steadfastness rather than aggression: that characteristic of those nations, at best stoicism, at worst obstinacy, that makes a Latin sometimes want to take them and shake them till their teeth rattle. They are songs of endurance rather than attack. Almost the opposite is Mexico's "Mexicanos al grito de guerra", a light, excited march for an excitable nation; and wholly the opposite, of course, the Marseillaise, an urgent and aveging call to reverse the wrongs of centures and fight for the right, fight for justice, here, now! In the vision of the Marseillaise, France is not even so much a nation, an ancient entity with its age-old dignity and self-respect, so much as the instrument of justice and vengeance against tyranny over the whole of civilization. And while this idea has a tremendous native appeal - no song is better than the Marseillaise just before a battle - it is also easy to understand why a small section of the French nation has never been reconciled to the republican ideal, and remains attached to this day to the idealized royal tyranny of "Vive Henri Quatre" and "Vivent les Chouans".
Just as these things are native and indeed natural to the countries from where they arose, so the Anthem of Mameli is utterly Italian and could not have been created anywhere else. That is why, from the moment it was composed, it was a triumphant hit, spreading by its own power across cities and fields to the most remote mountain villages of the country, and why the greatest Italian composer, Verdi, recognized it as the natural song of the nation, and used it as such. It is about Italy, much more than the Marseillaise is about France, calling to mind episode after episode of Italian history, and speaking not of new ages or of universal rebellion against tyranny, but simply of an Italy returned to dignity and freedom. But beyond that, just as "God save the Queen" embodies the unpretentious stoicism of the English and the Russian anthem the pugnacious endurance of Russia, so the Anthem of Mameli expresses something about our nation. It is that strange ability of Italians that strike so many foreigners, to be at once passionate and dignified, theatrical and truthful, to manage to find a pose for every stituation that is not artificial but to the contrary a direct expression of what must be expressed. The proximity of Italians and the theatre, of Italians and acting, is something that has struck the eye of visitors from the moment that Italy became a place to travel to. There is, indeed, an Italian expression that simply cannot be translated into any other language, and which is yet fundamental to the Italian idea of how to behave in public: darsi un contegno. Literally translated, this would mean to take an attitude, but nothing could be more inadequate to what it expresses. It means rather that, in the presence of horrible or odious circumstances, one should find it natural to keep one's dignity while reacting in the manner required. A person who, having suffered an injustice, perorates powerfully, even angrily, but with no loss of control, si da' un contegno; a person who merely starts screeching in rage does not. A person who has lost a loved one and who can speak of him/her without losing control, but with the love and grief that the subject demands, si da' un contegno.
Now the Italian national anthem has exactly this at its centre. It is not military or militant in the sense of La Marseillaise or the Battle Hymn of the Republic; but it falls in the form of a military march with a natural progression that directly expresses its central ideas of freedom and unity for historic Italy. it was taken up by crowds and mobs because it invited them to march, and to march in ranks. That is a less direct and immediate demand than the Marseillaise makes, but it is none the less just as easy to understand as a call to war. The difference - apart from the universal tone of the Marseillaise - is that the call to march is expressed in terms of form as much as purpose. To a people who had never had a national army, and who were mostly kept under control by foreign mercenaries in the pay of foreign powers, the poet Mameli and the musician Novaro said: Italy calls on you, on you individual and on you crowd, to be soldiers - to gather, to move under discipline, to march, to fight, and to die. The music itself forms the idea of a marching army by its own sounds. It acts on the Italian capacity to unify action and expression, to be actors in their own plays, and, if necessary, victims in their own tragedies. Real-life tragedies. When, in 1859, the city of Perugia rebelled against the rule of the Pope and formed a revolutionary government, there were no more than 400 rifles in the city, most of them worthless single-shot hunting pieces. Nonetheless, more than a thousand men from Perugia came forth to be soldiers, and would not be contradicted; and when, in a few days, 5000 Papal mercenaries fell on the rebel city, they all fought with whatever they had at hand - kitchen knives, coppices, stones - till the furious troops, held back and made to bleed for a day by these ragtag and bobtail locals, overwhelmed them and entered Perugia, killing anything they could find.
The most beautiful national anthem, in the end, is that of Israel; a song of ache for a lost and never renounced promised land, in which it is impossible to tell - and thank God for that - whether the promised land of heart's desire is on earth, in heaven, or both.
There certainly are national anthems that are boring or bad. The only thing I do not like about Australia - otherwise one of my favourite countries - is the dull anthem it gave itself via a competition, with its incredibly fatuous chorus "Advance Australia Fair", which sounds like a corporate name. Had they waited a few years, they could at least have taken the Seekers' lovely "I am Australian", which has a lot more to say about the country. And the USA, sorry my friends, but don't have a particularly good item either. Francis Scott Keys' words are not bad; at least, they form a coherent poem. But the music, taken from an eighteenth-century drinking song, is to my ear simply cold and artificial. Even without mentioning the magnificent Battle Hymn of the Republic - which probably could not have been used on account of its origins in civil war - "America the Beautiful" would have been better.
At least the tune of Anacreon in Heaven is typical of one aspect of American attitudes: the ceremonial, neoclassical, Age of Enlightenment conduct that America loves especially in its public bodies. Spain, on the other hand, simply has an inadequate anthem - a wordless march that happened to please an eighteenth-century king, and that might well do as a regimental march, but never as the musical symbol of a nation. If you heard it without knowing what it was, you would believe neither that it is a national anthem, nor that it is the anthem of that particular country, with that history. The German anthem spoils a noble and beautiful tune, composed by one of the greatest musicians in history on purpose to be the anthem of his country, with words of exceptional lack of grace and taste. The first verse, calling for Germany to be above everything else in the world and ascribing borders to it that are now found in France, Russia, Denmark and Italy, has long been felt to to be offensive, and dropped; but it is the second verse that really show a vulgarity of mind that takes one's breath away. No other country would have placed "German women, German loyalty, German wine and German song" in a national anthem or made them a reason to live or die for a country. Loyalty, perhaps; the rest belong in the repertory of barroom songs. The infelicity of the expression is incredible, and no wonder that this embarrassing stanza has fallen under the same proscription as the first. The only stanza now sung is the innocuous third, expressing feelings to which anyone could subscribe - "Unity, justice and freedom, for the German fatherland - to this purpose let us struggle, brothers all with heart and hand - Unity, justice and freedom, on them happiness is founded - blossom in the light of this happiness, blossom, German fatherland!". Not exactly great poetry, but decent and worthwhile feelings for any nation. But what a damned waste of Haydn's majestic song!
The best national anthems have this in common, that they have been taken up more or less by popular will and without need of any official enactment or competition. And as such, we may say that they say something about the nations that chose them. So, for instance, was the beautiful national anthem of Wales, appearing out of nowhere in particular at the beginnings of the twentieth century, and redolent at once of the great choral tradition of Welsh chapels, of the noble mountain landscape of the little country, and of the special character of the Welsh language, capable of amazing and almost Latin conciseness. The Russian anthem is a partial exception: created by order of Stalin, it was nonetheless kept by popular desire after the Soviet Union and communism had both died. To my ear it has lots in common with the anthems of England and Holland. They all express steadfastness rather than aggression: that characteristic of those nations, at best stoicism, at worst obstinacy, that makes a Latin sometimes want to take them and shake them till their teeth rattle. They are songs of endurance rather than attack. Almost the opposite is Mexico's "Mexicanos al grito de guerra", a light, excited march for an excitable nation; and wholly the opposite, of course, the Marseillaise, an urgent and aveging call to reverse the wrongs of centures and fight for the right, fight for justice, here, now! In the vision of the Marseillaise, France is not even so much a nation, an ancient entity with its age-old dignity and self-respect, so much as the instrument of justice and vengeance against tyranny over the whole of civilization. And while this idea has a tremendous native appeal - no song is better than the Marseillaise just before a battle - it is also easy to understand why a small section of the French nation has never been reconciled to the republican ideal, and remains attached to this day to the idealized royal tyranny of "Vive Henri Quatre" and "Vivent les Chouans".
Just as these things are native and indeed natural to the countries from where they arose, so the Anthem of Mameli is utterly Italian and could not have been created anywhere else. That is why, from the moment it was composed, it was a triumphant hit, spreading by its own power across cities and fields to the most remote mountain villages of the country, and why the greatest Italian composer, Verdi, recognized it as the natural song of the nation, and used it as such. It is about Italy, much more than the Marseillaise is about France, calling to mind episode after episode of Italian history, and speaking not of new ages or of universal rebellion against tyranny, but simply of an Italy returned to dignity and freedom. But beyond that, just as "God save the Queen" embodies the unpretentious stoicism of the English and the Russian anthem the pugnacious endurance of Russia, so the Anthem of Mameli expresses something about our nation. It is that strange ability of Italians that strike so many foreigners, to be at once passionate and dignified, theatrical and truthful, to manage to find a pose for every stituation that is not artificial but to the contrary a direct expression of what must be expressed. The proximity of Italians and the theatre, of Italians and acting, is something that has struck the eye of visitors from the moment that Italy became a place to travel to. There is, indeed, an Italian expression that simply cannot be translated into any other language, and which is yet fundamental to the Italian idea of how to behave in public: darsi un contegno. Literally translated, this would mean to take an attitude, but nothing could be more inadequate to what it expresses. It means rather that, in the presence of horrible or odious circumstances, one should find it natural to keep one's dignity while reacting in the manner required. A person who, having suffered an injustice, perorates powerfully, even angrily, but with no loss of control, si da' un contegno; a person who merely starts screeching in rage does not. A person who has lost a loved one and who can speak of him/her without losing control, but with the love and grief that the subject demands, si da' un contegno.
Now the Italian national anthem has exactly this at its centre. It is not military or militant in the sense of La Marseillaise or the Battle Hymn of the Republic; but it falls in the form of a military march with a natural progression that directly expresses its central ideas of freedom and unity for historic Italy. it was taken up by crowds and mobs because it invited them to march, and to march in ranks. That is a less direct and immediate demand than the Marseillaise makes, but it is none the less just as easy to understand as a call to war. The difference - apart from the universal tone of the Marseillaise - is that the call to march is expressed in terms of form as much as purpose. To a people who had never had a national army, and who were mostly kept under control by foreign mercenaries in the pay of foreign powers, the poet Mameli and the musician Novaro said: Italy calls on you, on you individual and on you crowd, to be soldiers - to gather, to move under discipline, to march, to fight, and to die. The music itself forms the idea of a marching army by its own sounds. It acts on the Italian capacity to unify action and expression, to be actors in their own plays, and, if necessary, victims in their own tragedies. Real-life tragedies. When, in 1859, the city of Perugia rebelled against the rule of the Pope and formed a revolutionary government, there were no more than 400 rifles in the city, most of them worthless single-shot hunting pieces. Nonetheless, more than a thousand men from Perugia came forth to be soldiers, and would not be contradicted; and when, in a few days, 5000 Papal mercenaries fell on the rebel city, they all fought with whatever they had at hand - kitchen knives, coppices, stones - till the furious troops, held back and made to bleed for a day by these ragtag and bobtail locals, overwhelmed them and entered Perugia, killing anything they could find.
The most beautiful national anthem, in the end, is that of Israel; a song of ache for a lost and never renounced promised land, in which it is impossible to tell - and thank God for that - whether the promised land of heart's desire is on earth, in heaven, or both.
