from Hacker News

How many national anthems are plagiarised?

by Tideflat on 8/26/15, 7:24 PM with 25 comments

  • by masswerk on 8/27/15, 12:38 AM

    Missing: The German national anthem.

    This was actually the anthem of the Austrian monarchy (introduced in 1797, in official use from 1826 until the end of the monarchy in 1918). Some Austrians are still hearing the original text ("Gott erhalte, Gott beschütze / Unsern Kaiser, unser Land!") whenever the "Deutschlandlied" is played.

    Before the "Deutschlandlied" was introduced in 1922, the Prussian anthem "Heil Dir im Siegerkranz" was in common, but not official use in the German empire (1871). This one used, like many others, the melody of Britain's God Save the King/Queen.

    [Edit] The anthem of the Habsburg-empire is a bit tricky in terms of plagiarism: The melody was composed by Joseph Haydn in commission by Franz II. (later Franz I.), but was also part of the "Kaiserquartett" (op. 76 no. 3, also 1797). Here, there are some similarities to an earlier composition by Mozart ("Exsultate, jubilate").

  • by saint_fiasco on 8/27/15, 5:02 AM

    After Paraguay lost most of its population in a huge war in the 1870s, there was literally nobody alive who could remember the entire Paraguayan national anthem, and all written records were lost.

    So our lyrics of our National Anthem now consist of all the fragments people could kinda remember all smashed together, including some parts that make no sense (Can any Spanish speaker tell me what the word "infausto" is supposed to mean?).

    The gaps in the melody were filled by copying La Marseillaise, I believe.

  • by chipsy on 8/26/15, 11:27 PM

    I once browsed through the lyrical content of national anthems for common themes. The typical republic's theme consists of: "kill the tyrant, the people will rise, we will not be defeated." There are little variations among them that reference particular struggles in their history, but in most ways they're more similar than different.

  • by scardine on 8/26/15, 11:34 PM

    The Brazilian national anthem is said to be a mashup of several compositions of the time, including the French anthem: you can sing "Allons enfants de la patrie!" in place of "Ouviram do Ipiranga as margens plácidas"

    There are also several bars ripped off from Paganini.

  • by mcv on 8/28/15, 8:30 AM

    The article incorrectly mentions God Save the Queen as the first national anthem. The oldest national anthem in the world in the Dutch Wilhemus. The first to be officially recognized as national anthem is the Spanish La Marcha Real. God Save the Queen is younger than Wilhelmus, and was never officially recognized as national anthem; it's really just a very popular song.

    See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_historical_national_an...

  • by colomon on 8/27/15, 9:32 AM

    This articule weird because it's holding the anthems to a standard that doesn't make much sense. In traditional music and hymns, tunes and words are semi-independent, and it is completely routine for one tune to have multiple sets of words set to it, or one set of words to have multiple tunes.

    If you claimed you wrote the tune when you borrowed it, sure, that's plagiarism. But setting words to an existing tune while acknowledging that you are doing so is perfectly okay.

  • by AReallyGoodName on 8/26/15, 11:48 PM

    New Zealand has to have the funniest one. It's just Twinkle Twinkle Little Star played a bit slower.

  • by chewxy on 8/26/15, 11:31 PM

    To some extent I think all inventable music has been invented. I can't remember the exact piece, but you can even hear parts of Advance Australia Fair in a Beethoven piece!

    But it's interesting how even countries share melodies

  • by delinka on 8/26/15, 11:38 PM

    How about American high school (or even college & university) fight songs?

  • by yellowapple on 8/26/15, 11:15 PM

    Doesn't even mention the Star-Spangled Banner, which is literally Francis Scott Key's "Defence of Fort McHenry" sung to the tune of "To Anacreon in Heaven".

  • by TazeTSchnitzel on 8/27/15, 12:11 PM

    The European anthem, quite deliberately, is the final movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony, without the usual lyrics (Ode an die Freude).

  • by analog31 on 8/27/15, 12:19 AM

    "Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal." -- Stravinsky