July 04, 1997|By NEIL A. GRAUER
AS BANDS AND orchestras across the country tune up for Independence Day concerts, they are certain to perpetuate our nation's curious case of muddled musical personality on patriotic occasions.
A typical Fourth of July crowd-pleaser is ''The 1812 Overture,'' which might be considered an odd choice. It celebrates a military defeat of the French, our allies during the Revolution, by the Russians, who were not exactly our friends, and the British, who were our enemies -- both during the Revolution and in 1812. But it does offer the opportunity to combine flashy fireworks with lots of booming cannons and artillery. Ballistics may not be on the curriculum of the Peabody Conservatory of Music, but a familiarity with it comes in handy over the Fourth.
Then there's ''My Country 'Tis of Thee.'' In Ken Burns' documentary on Thomas Jefferson earlier this year, the camera lovingly panned over Jefferson's personal draft of the Declaration of Independence as narrator Ossie Davis reverentially called this document ''the essence of the American creed'' and the stately strains of ''My Country 'Tis of Thee'' were heard in the background.
That is another odd choice. It surely would have astonished Jefferson. The words of ''My Country 'Tis of Thee'' (or ''America'') were written by Samuel Francis Smith in 1831 and set to the tune of what had been -- and remains -- the British national anthem since the 1740s, ''God Save the King'' (or Queen). One can imagine Jefferson shuddering at the thought that his stirring expression of rebellion against George III would be paired musically with the anthem glorifying his reign.
And then we have the seemingly endless ambivalence over our own national anthem. ''The Star-Spangled Banner'' -- the song, not the flag -- has long been under siege. Periodically, efforts are undertaken to replace it with ''America the Beautiful,'' which is deemed an easier song to sing and not the least bit bellicose.
''The Star-Spangled Banner'' has challenged -- and vanquished -- more singers, amateur and professional, than all the enemy troops defeated by American forces fighting under its aegis. The problem is that the music to which Francis Scott Key set his poem -- an old English drinking song, ''To Anacreon in Heaven'' -- involves a range of notes that is almost impossible for even ardent patriots to master. Most songs lie within the range of a sixth -- six notes apart. Some lie within an octave, eight notes. But within two measures of ''The Star-Spangled Banner,'' a singer must navigate a tenth -- and then struggle even more. Ultimately, the song ranges an octave and a fifth, or 13 notes.
The tune is one thing; the lyrics are another. These also discomfort some people, who dislike the references to ''bombs bursting in air'' and the zeal with which we ''conquer'' our foes. Yet ''The Star-Spangled Banner'' is hardly the most bloodthirsty of national anthems. Consider France's ''Marseillaise,'' which probably is the most thrilling national anthem -- provided you don't know French and can't understand it:
Allons, enfants de la patrie/ Le jour de gloire est arrive
(Forward, children of France, the day of glory has come!)
Aux armes, citoyens! (To arms, citizens!)
Formez vos battaillons! (Line up in battalions!)
Marchons! Marchons! Qu'un sang impur / Abreuve nos sillons!
(Let us march on! And let the impure blood [of our enemies] drench our fields!
By comparison, ''bombs bursting in air'' is tame. Would the French dream of changing their anthem? Don't bet on it.
''The Star-Spangled Banner'' was inspired by a specific, significant historic event -- the heroic defense of an American city (our city) against a foreign invader. Although it only became our official national anthem in 1931, it was adopted as such by many of the military services at least a century ago and was formally treated as the military anthem during World War I.
''America the Beautiful'' was written in 1893 by Katherine Lee Bates, an English professor at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, who devised the lyrics to fit an existing hymn by Samuel A. Ward. Is it a pretty song and easy to sing? Certainly. But what exactly does it mean? Every country in the world has spacious skies. Switzerland has ''purple mountain majesties.'' Canada has shining seas on opposite coasts. Even Russia has amber waves of grain in good years. And almost every nation pays lip service to the concept of brotherhood.
Even if the opponents of ''The Star-Spangled Banner'' ultimately succeed in replacing it as the national anthem, it likely will remain a standard in at least one Baltimore venue. Here it retains a special, modern significance far removed from the circumstances of its birth -- although it is a call to combat of a sort.
Without that familiar, final stanza, ''O! say does that star-spangled banner yet wave . . . ,'' how could we emphatically proclaim ''O!'' in honor of the Orioles?
Neil A. Grauer is the author of ''Remember Laughter: A Life of James Thurber.''
Pub Date: 7/04/97
