Rule, Britannia!
Rule, Britannia! is a patriotic song by the English composer Thomas Augustine Arne (1710–1778) and the lyricists James Thomson and David Mallet . It has its origins as the final song of the stage play Alfred, a masque from 1740.
The song was and is considered the "unofficial national anthem " of Great Britain - the official national anthem of this and some other Commonwealth countries is God Save the Queen - and is part of the repertoire of the London Last Night of the Proms , where the most famous and popular arrangement of Malcolm Sargent is played.
history
Alfred's libretto and thus also the text of Rule, Britannia! was written by James Thomson and David Mallet - you can no longer find out who wrote what exactly - and was first performed on August 1, 1740 at the country estate of Prince of Wales Friedrich Ludwig von Hanover in Cliveden ( Buckinghamshire ). The original title of the song is A grand ode in honor of Great Britain / When Britain first at heav'n's command .
While the first three of the six verses known today come from the Masque of Alfred , the other three were added by Lord Bolingbroke in 1755 for Mallet's Masque of Britannia .
At the time of the premiere, the British Navy still shared supremacy at sea with the French and Dutch. In the Peace of Paris in 1763 , Great Britain received a large part of the French colonies in North America . Although the Thirteen Colonies were lost after the American War of Independence (thus ending the First British Empire ), Great Britain defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 , and Great Britain defied Napoleon's continental blockade from 1806 to 1814 . Great Britain opened up new sales markets (especially in North America) - once again the importance of shipping was evident. After Napoleon's end, Great Britain's “imperial century” (1815–1914) began. At the Congress of Vienna , some colonies were exchanged.
After defeating France, Britain had no more serious rivals (with the exception of the Russian Empire in Central Asia ). The British, unrestrictedly dominant at sea, took on the role of a “world policeman”, a state doctrine later known as “ Pax Britannica ”. Foreign policy was shaped by the principle of “ splendid isolation ”: other powers were bound by conflicts in Europe, while the British stayed out and expanded their supremacy by concentrating on trade. Thanks to its leading position in the world economy, Great Britain also influenced the domestic politics of numerous nominally independent states; this included China , Argentina and Siam , also known as the “informal empire”.
The naval fleet later protected Britain from a series of "haughty tyrants" and "foreign strokes" as described in the song.
Use of the song
Rule, Britannia! is - like the patriotic pieces Land of Hope and Glory and Jerusalem - traditionally performed by the BBC during the Last Night of the Proms (closing event of the promenade concerts) and is usually sung by a guest star, including Bryn Terfel , Thomas Hampson , Della Jones , Gwyneth Jones , Kiri te Kanawa and Felicity Lott . However, after the singing along with the song and other patriotic works and the intense flag waving of the audience were repeatedly criticized as a longing for imperial greatness and the past, including by Leonard Slatkin , it was only performed in abbreviated form for a few years. In 2020, the two unofficial national anthems, "Rule, Britannia" and "Land of Hope and Glory", will only be performed instrumentally at the Proms, which is what makes British, who feel like patriots, outraged and accuse the BBC of being more political Bow correctness. In 1994 the song was sung at the Last Night of the Proms in London's Royal Albert Hall by Bryn Terfel - the well-known Welsh bass-baritone - who, to everyone's surprise, sang the third verse in Welsh (see web links ). He did this when he first performed the song in its traditional form in 2008.
English football fans sing the chorus each time the national team plays.
In the late 1990s, the word game Cool Britannia referred to a revitalized and youthful United Kingdom that the British media saw emerged from the election of Tony Blair's New Labor government .
text
Original text
English
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Verbatim translation
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Sung version
The 2nd verse and the 3rd verse of each stanza are sung twice, sometimes in a different form:
English
- When Britain first at Heav'n's command
- Arose from out the azure main;
- Arose, arose, arose from out the azure main;
- This was the charter, the charter of the land,
- And guardian angels sang this strain;
- |: Rule, Britannia! Britannia rule the waves!
- Britons never will be slaves.: |
- The nations not so blest as thee,
- Must in their turns to tyrants fall,
- Must in their turns to tyrants fall;
- While thou shalt flourish, shalt flourish great and free,
- The dread and envy of them all.
- |: Chorus: |
- ...
In contrast to the original text, in which only one long drawn out “never” is sung in the chorus, it is now common to sing three quick “never, never, never”, and in the refrain there was also will to shall . The refrain is therefore mostly Rule, Britannia! Britannia rule the waves! / Britons never, never, never shall be slaves.
Further use of the song
- The melody used today is the subject of a set of variations on the English folk song "Rule Britannia" for piano (D major) WoO 79 by Ludwig van Beethoven . His orchestral work Wellington's Victory or the Battle of Vitoria also begins - after a drum roll - with “Rule Britannia”.
- Richard Wagner worked on the theme "Rule Britannia" in the overture for orchestra in D major ( WWV 42 ) from 1837.
- In the film Around the World in 80 Days, different variations of "Rule Britannia" are played during the scenes at sea.
- In the James Bond film The Living Daylights , 007 has a key fob that emits anesthetic gas when "Rule Britannia" is whistled.
- In the film The Girl Irma la Douce (1963), "Rule Britannia" always sounds when Lord X shows up to pay Irma a nightly visit.
- In the movie Killer ahoy! (1964) Margaret Rutherford provided an interpretation of the song as Miss Marple . Her original voice can also be heard in the German version on the DVD of the film.
- In the film Charlie dusts millions (1969), the song appears several times in instrumental form.
- The song title was used by Daphne du Maurier (1907-1989) as the novel title Rule Britannia .
- The Punch published during the American Civil War a parody Rule Slaveownia , a satire on the Confederacy :
“When first the South, to fury fanned
Arose and broke the Union's chain,
There was the Charter, the Charter of the land,
And Mr Davis sang this strain:
Rule Slaveownia! Slaveownia rules and raves,
'Christians ever, ever, ever shall have slaves'. "
- Occasionally the song title is satirized with "Waive, Britannia - Britannia waives the rules" ("Ignore, Britannia, Britannia ignore the rules").
- Mel Brooks uses the melody in some of his films when there is a reference to England or Great Britain, such as In To Be Or Not To Be (1983) when the main characters arrive in London or in Robin Hood Heroes in Tights when Robin Hood is on the coast England arrives.
- In the PC computer games Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny , Ultima VI: The False Prophet , Ultima VII: The Black Gate and Ultima IX: Ascension (produced by Origin Systems and later Electronic Arts ), Rule Britannia is always when entering the castle of Lord British played.
- In the animated film Cars 2 from Pixar an instrumental version of the piece is played, Lightning McQueen and Hook to Buckingham Palace enter to enter ceremony knighthood to Hooks and Hook tried to bring the famous guards out of the socket.
- Former British wrestler David Boy Smith aka The British Bulldog used the song as an entry music during his time in the US World Wrestling Federation in the 1990s.
- In the 1935 film Mutiny on the Bounty , Rule Britannia sounds in the closing sequence .
- In the 1962 film Mutiny on the Bounty , the anthem sounds instrumental in the scene of Fletcher Christian's casting off and return from the ship to the island of Tahiti
- In the 1986 film Basil, the great mouse detective , the hymn sounds instrumental in the scene in which the "Queen" of the mice appears for the first time.
- In the netflix series "The Crown", Rule Britannia is played as Winston Churchill's entry on his 80th birthday.
literature
- Thomas Augustine Arne : Alfred . Musica Britannica Vol. XLVII; ed. by Alexander Scott; London: Stainer & Bell, 1981, ISBN 0-85249-476-9 (score, urtext ).
- Peter Padfield: Rule Britannia: The Victorian and Edwardian Navy ; London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981; ISBN 0-7100-0774-4 (documentation, English).
- Daphne du Maurier : Rule Britannia ; London: Virago Press, 2004; ISBN 1-84408-063-3 . First edition: London: Victor Gollancz, 1972 (novel, English).
Web links
- Piano version (9 kB, midi file)
- Orchestral version of the Duke of Edinburgh's Royal Regiment (121 kB, MP3 file)
- BBC Symphony Orchestra, Last Night of the Proms, Live 1994 , artist Bryn Terfel (4:27 min, approx. 4 MB, MP3 file)
- Beethoven-Haus Bonn, Variations on the English folk song "Rule Britannia" for piano (D major) WoO 79
- Rule Britannia at Last Night of the Prom 2010 on the official BBC YouTube page with Renée Fleming (variation)
- Rule Britannia at the Last Night of the Prom 2011 on the official BBC YouTube page with Susan Bullock .
Individual evidence
- ^ Porter, The Nineteenth Century, p. 401
- ^ Porter, The Nineteenth Century, p. 332
- ^ Olson, Historical Dictionary of the British Empire, p. 285
- ^ Porter, The Nineteenth Century, p. 8
- ↑ Rule , Britannia, but don't sing - racism dispute over unofficial national anthems at "Last Night of the Proms" (Jochen Buchsteiner), In: FAZ from August 26, 2020
- ↑ a b File: Rule, Britannia! .Pdf
- ↑ Maurice Willson Disher: Victorian Song . Phoenix House, 1955.
- ↑ MP3 file