Word: anthem
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Searching about for a vehicle through which I might best express my gratitude at the prospect of becoming an American citizen, I chose to harmonize and orchestrate as a national choral the beautiful sacred anthem The Star-Spangled Banner...
...cover. The words and music were by a sometime modernist ear-splitter, a onetime Russian aristocrat, Igor Stravinsky. At first toot, the author of the raucous thumps and blats of The Rite of Spring (played in Walt Disney's Fantasia) hardly seemed a likely rearranger for the national anthem. But the Stravinskian Star-Spangled Banner, despite its slight Russian accent, is a genuinely spacious and stirring piece. It should be welcomed by conductors who, under the ukase of Boss James Caesar Petrillo of the musicians' union, now play it at every symphony and opera performance. Stravinsky...
...tune of The Star-Spangled Banner, which has been the official national anthem for only a decade, is an old British drinking song.* It is usually played without arrangement, so that every performer "fakes" to his heart's content...
...written by John Stafford Smith, the society's organist. Author Francis Scott Key. although believed to be tone-deaf, was apparently familiar with the original song. Congress, tone-deaf to such entreaties as the tune's unsingability as well as its convivial origins, made the anthem official...
Norway. Two trade-union leaders, Viggo Hansteen and Rolf Vickstroen, refused to have their eyes bandaged, stared at the Nazi firing squad, sang the Norwegian anthem...