God Save the Queen

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God Save the Queen / God Save the King
Title in German "God save the queen" /
"God save the king"
country United KingdomUnited Kingdom United Kingdom , New Zealand , Commonwealth Realms
New ZealandNew Zealand 
Usage period since around 1800
text Henry Carey (controversial)
melody Henry Carey (controversial)
Sheet of music Gstk.pngPublication 1745
Audio files MP3

Instrumental

Instrumental version

God Save the Queen (“ God save the Queen ”) or God Save the King (“ God save the King ”) - depending on whether the British monarch is a woman or a manat the time of usesince the beginning of the 19th century the national anthem of what is now the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland . It is also one of the two national anthems of New Zealand and the royal anthem of all Commonwealth Realms .

In addition, the song Rule, Britannia! , Arthur Christopher Benson's Land of Hope and Glory to the melody of Sir Edward Elgar's March Pomp and Circumstance No.1 and Jerusalem by William Blake with the melody of Hubert Parry as "unofficial" British national anthems. Parts of the United Kingdom ( Scotland , Wales and Northern Ireland ) also have their own (unofficial) national anthems. The British anthem is usually also sung for England .

melody

The Thesaurus Musicus (1744) is considered to be the place of the first publication of the melody (still in a slightly different version ). The following year the melody was printed in Gentleman's Magazine with the opening words "God save great George our king" . Older similar melodies include a Gregorian chant and harpsichord piece (1619) by John Bull . Traces of the melody can also be found in some of Henry Purcell's works , once even the use of the melody head together with the text “God save the King”. During the Jacobite Rebellion in 1745, the hymn was sung in various London theaters, including the Drury Lane Theater in an arrangement by Thomas Arne in honor of King George II of Great Britain and Ireland . The Jacobites also adopted the song with the opening words “God save great James our king”.

In contrast, the authorship of the poet Henry Carey is rejected today. Carey's son had assigned the rights to the melody to his father in 1795 and had hoped for a royal pension from it. However, he stated that his father had just composed the melody in 1745, although he had died in 1743. The writer Carey is said to have taken the help of his friend Smith, who was a student of George Frideric Handel and who corrected his bass voice , for the composition .

Equally wrong is the derivation of a melody by the French composer Jean-Baptiste Lully , with which, according to the memories of the Marquise de Créquy, the recovery of Louis XIV from an anal fistula was celebrated.

A march of the Swiss military was also named as the origin of the melody.

The then strange name national anthem , ie “national anthem ”, came from the fact that the fourth Coronation Anthems, composed by Handel in 1727, had the same beginning. In 1745, for patriotic reasons, these were sung daily in London theaters and concerts for a while, just before Carey's song became popular. So it inherited the name anthem , which today means both “hymn” and “hymn”.

song lyrics

Here the version God Save the Queen . If a king rules the monarchy, the line is God Save the King . Then the pronouns are also adjusted: she / he, her / him, her / his .

Today's stanzas

English original German translation
God save our gracious queen,
Long live our noble queen,
God save the Queen!
Send her victorious,
Happy and glorious,
Long to reign over us;
God save the Queen!
God protect our gracious queen!
Long live our noble queen
God Save the Queen!
Let her victorious
Be happy and glorious
May she rule over us long!
God Save the Queen!
O Lord, our God arise,
Scatter her enemies
And make them fall;
Confound their politics,
Frustrate their knavish tricks,
On Thee our hopes we fix,
God save us all!
O Lord our God, help her,
Scatter their enemies
And bring them down;
Thwart their tricks,
Thwart their villainous plans!
We place our hopes on you.
God save us all!
Thy choicest gifts in store
On her be pleased to pour;
Long may she reign;
May she defend our laws,
And ever give us cause
To sing with heart and voice, 1
God save the Queen!
With your choicest gifts
do not hesitate to shower them,
Long may she rule
May she defend our laws
And always give us reason
To sing with heart and voice:
God Save the Queen!

1 In the version God save the King this line reads: With heart and voice to sing (because of the rhyme of King ).

More stanzas

The last three of the originally six stanzas hymn are usually no longer sung today:

English original German translation
Not in this land alone,
But be God's mercies known,
From shore to shore!
Lord make the nations see,
That men should brothers be,
And form one family,
The wide world over.
Not just in this country
Be known God's grace,
But from coast to coast!
Lord let the peoples know
That people should be brothers
And be a family
Around the world.
From every latent foe,
From the assassins blow,
God save the Queen!
O'er her thine arm extend,
For Britain's sake defend,
Our mother, prince, and friend,
God save the Queen!
From every hidden enemy
Before the murderous attacks
God save the queen!
Hold your hand over her
For Britain's sake receive
Our mother, princess and friend,
God Save the Queen!
Lord grant that Marshall Wade
May by thy mighty aid
Victory bring.
May he sedition hush,
And like a torrent rush,
Rebellious Scots to crush.
God save the Queen!
God give that Marshal Wade
With your mighty help
Bring victory!
May he silence the riot
And break loose like a torrent
To bring down rebellious Scots!
God Save the Queen!

Additional stanza earlier in Canada

Our loved Dominion bless
With peace and happiness
From shore to shore;
And let our Empire be
Loyal, united, free
True to herself and Thee
God save the Queen.
Bless our beloved rule
With peace and joy
From coast to coast
And leave our kingdom
Obedient, united, free and
Be true to yourself and yourself!
God Save the Queen!

First verse in French (previously sung in France and Canada)

The protège la pure
De sa main souveraine!
Vive la pure!
Qu'un règne glorieux,
Long and Victorieux
Rende son peuple heureux.
Vive la pure!
God Save the Queen
with his strong hand!
Long live the queen!
May a glorious
Long and victorious reign
make their people happy.
Long live the queen!

Use the melody for hymns from other countries

In the 19th century, numerous German princely and national anthems were created based on the melody of the British royal anthem . It has also been adopted in other countries:

A variation of the English hymn melody chose Kalakaua , the king of Hawaii , as the national anthem for his island kingdom in the 1890s .

In the United States , the tune is sung under the title America with the patriotic lyrics My Country, 'Tis of Thee . It was used by Charles Ives in his Variations on America (original for organ, arranged for orchestra by William Schuman ).

Processing in pop and rock music

In 1970 the progressive rock group Gentle Giant created an expressionist version of God Save the Queen on their first album (of the same name) under the title The Queen , in which the pompous performance of the hymn is supposed to reflect the appearance, perhaps even the essence of the Queen.

The British rock band Queen released an instrumental version of God Save the Queen on their 1975 album A Night at the Opera . Since 1974 (with the exception of performances in Ireland), this song was always the last that was played - on tape - at Queen's concerts, and thus anticipated any further requests for encores. In addition, the band's guitarist Brian May played his Red Special God Save the Queen on the roof of Buckingham Palace in 2002 to mark the opening of the Party at the Palace concert on the occasion of Queen Elizabeth II's golden jubilee .

In 1977 the punk band Sex Pistols caused a sensation when they presented a song of the same name as a single in London for the Queen's silver jubilee , in which they described the Queen as a non-human being and her empire as a fascist regime and as "England's reverie" termed no future . This song later appeared on their album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols and was covered by Motörhead , the Foo Fighters , Poison and Anthrax , among others .

Robert Fripp released a Frippertronics version of the anthem on the album God Save the Queen / Under Heavy Manners in 1980 .

In 2006 the Slovenian band Laibach, originally from the post-industrial environment, released a cover version under the title "Anglia" on a 12 "/ CD single of the same name with several remixes and on the album Volk , on which they played national anthems compared to earlier works, the music is "less brutal, but more consumer-friendly, with a filigree sound and is characterized by a well-structured composition", whereby classical instruments are combined with synthesizers and everyday noises as well as synthetically generated "noise". The voice varies "between classical Singing and a prophetic, commenting or admonishing gesture. ”According to their own statements, the band treats on this album“ the analogy and dichotomy of pop songs and national anthems ”, which are in fact themselves“ pop (ulistic) compositions. ”The basic characteristics of a hymn According to Laibach, they also apply to pieces of music in pop, what the band wanted to show. The music video for Anglia shows a “scrapped” elderly lady who feeds chained prisoners with British breakfast, draws blood from them and uses it to paint crosses on their bodies. This “smug and strict lady or queen was planted in an environment that was anything but representative or majestic ”. Their worn clothing suggests that they come from another century, but they use modern technology, so that there is a "discrepancy between appearance and time", underlined by the text alienated by the band, according to which the Queen is still for who holds ruler over the world. The prisoners chain themselves and wait for treatment by the queen, who laughs scornfully before leaving. This represents the former imperialism of Great Britain, the cross symbolizes proselytizing as a tool or (if it is turned) the flag of England , and thus indicates the original meaning of hymns as a composition to a religious text.

In 2012, Neil Young released a version of the song on his album Americana .

In 2014 , the Einstürzende Neubauten created a collage of different text variants such as God save the King and Heil dir im Siegerkranz to this melody under the title “Hymnen” on Lament , their concept album for the 100th anniversary of the start of the First World War .

Movie

See also

Web links

Wikisource: God Save the Queen  - Sources and full texts (English)
Commons : God Save the Queen  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. a b c After Percy A. Scholes in: The Oxford Companion to Music (tenth edition). Oxford University Press.
  2. Souvenirs de la Marquise de Créquy, cap. 4 . Penelope.uchicago.edu. Retrieved February 12, 2014.
  3. Cf. Anthem as well as word origin of Anthem ( Antiphon ).
  4. "Thoroughly shaken" . In: Der Spiegel , No. 29/1971, July 12, 1971 (accessed March 25, 2010).
  5. ^ Eva-Maria Hanser: Ideotopie. Playing with the ideology and utopia of 'Laibach art' . Vienna 2010, p. 41–44 ( univie.ac.at [PDF; accessed on September 12, 2011]).
  6. http://www.laut.de/Einstuerzende-Neubauten/Alben/Lament-94720