To Anacreon in Heaven
"The Anacreontic Song", also known by its incipit "To Anacreon In Heaven", was the official song of the Anacreontic Society, an 18th-century gentlemen's club of amateur musicians in London. Attributed to the composer John Stafford Smith, the tune was later used by several writers as a setting for their patriotic lyrics. These included two songs by Francis Scott Key, most famously his poem "Defence of Fort McHenry". The latter combination became known as "The Star-Spangled Banner" and was adopted as the national anthem of the United States of America, in 1931.
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Composition [edit]
The music is believed to have been composed[1] by a member of the Society, John Stafford Smith from Gloucester, to lyrics written by the Society's president, Ralph Tomlinson. Smith is believed to have composed the music in the middle 1760s, while still a teenager. It was first published by The Vocal Magazine (London) in 1778.[2]
These barristers, doctors, and other professional men named their club after the Greek court poet Anacreon (6th century BC), whose poems, called "anacreontics", were used to entertain patrons in Teos and Athens. His songs often celebrated women, wine, and entertainment ("wine, woman, and song").
The connection with Anacreon, along with the "drinking" nature of the lyrics, have caused many people to label "The Anacreontic Song" a drinking song. Due to the difficulty of singing the song, this claim is highly dubious, although the chorus certainly suggests Bacchanalia with its lyrics, "And long may the sons of Anacreon intwine the myrtle of Venus with Bacchus' vine."
The song, through its bawdy lyrics, gained popularity in London and elsewhere beyond the Anacreontic Society. New lyrics were also fashioned for it, including several patriotic titles in the United States. The most popular of these at the time was Robert Treat Paine Jr.'s Adams and Liberty[3] (1798).
"The Star-Spangled Banner" [edit]
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Francis Scott Key wrote "Defence of Fort McHenry" during the War of 1812, while detained on a British ship during the night of September 13, 1814, as the British forces bombarded the American fort. Key specifically wrote the lyrics with this familiar patriotic tune in mind, just as he had done with an earlier set of his lyrics, "When the Warrior Returns", in which he had made similar use of "star-spangled banner" imagery.[4] Later retitled "The Star-Spangled Banner", Key's lyrics, set to Stafford Smith's music, became a well-known and recognized patriotic song throughout the United States, and was officially designated as the U.S. national anthem on March 3, 1931.[5] The setting of new lyrics to an existing tune is called a contrafactum.[6]
References [edit]
- ^ There is only one known firsthand account, by Society member John Samuel Stevens.
- ^ Glover, Raymond F. The Hymnal 1982 companion, Volume 3, Church Publishing, Inc., 1990.
- ^ "Adams and Liberty".
- ^ "When the Warrior Returns".
- ^ "John Stafford Smith: Composer of the Star Spangled Banner".
- ^ As American as tarte aux pommes! Celebrating the Fourth with some American Music
External links [edit]
Lyrics [edit]
- Tomlinson, Ralph, To Anacreon in Heaven, Poem of the Week, #234, retrieved 2008-06-01
- Lossing, Benson J., ed. (1873), The American Historical Record II, Philadelphia: Samuel P. Town, Publisher, p. 129
"The Star-Spangled Banner" [edit]
Media [edit]
- Link to .mp3 as sung by John Townley on The Top Hits Of 1776.
- Link to video as performed by the Georgia Tech Glee Club.
History [edit]
- Sonneck, Oscar (1914), The Star Spangled Banner, Library of Congress, retrieved 2013-03-26
