So Just How Old is The Star-Spangled Banner Anyway? Part 1

Well, that depends on which portion of it you are talking about.  There is the tune, there are the lyrics, and there is its status as our National Anthem, all of which rolled onto the world stage at different times.

And why does it matter?  The 200^th anniversary of the writing of The Star-Spangled Banner is coming up in September.  This is a big deal, a chance to appreciate our history and our music, and Master Chorus Eastside will commemorate this anniversary as part of our Celebrate America concert on June 29^th.

Let’s begin with the tune.

Most people don’t know that Francis Scott Key composed only the lyrics, not the melody, of The Star-Spangled Banner.  The tune actually began life in 1775 as the anthem of a gentlemen’s amateur music society and supper club in London called The Anacreontic Society.  Anacreon was a Greek lyric poet who loved to write about drinking and women.  Homer wrote about gods and heroes; Anacreon wrote about romance and drinking; guess who is remembered today!

Anacreontic Society meetings began with a two-hour concert, followed by a late supper, group singing, and multiple toasts.  The meetings combined a great deal of fun with good quality music making, and it became known as THE place to be every other Wednesday evening at whatever London restaurant they chose to meet at.  The club anthem, in six rather silly verses, calls on Anacreon to be their patron and inspirer, and the refrain became an excuse to toast one another.  The myrtle of Venus, as mentioned in the refrain, was a symbol of romantic love for the ancient Greeks, but for the Anacreons it stood for the friendship and unanimity of the club.  Bacchus’s vine, also mentioned in the chorus, needs no interpretation.

The melody became highly popular and a convenient vehicle for many a lyric, so much so that nearly everyone forgot its origins.  By 1791 it had arrived here in America, just in time to become the favorite tune for all kinds of texts, especially commemorations of patriotic figures and events.  In fact, by 1820 it had been used for more than 85 different poems, including one written by Key ten years before he wrote The Star-Spangled Banner!  Key’s early version even uses some of the same words and phrases that appear in his later lyric.

The melody itself, then, is close to 250 years old.  Keys poem came along more than fifty years later, inspired by a climactic event during the War of 1812.  More on that in my next blog; the story is wonderful, and makes our Anthem come to life in a way that I hadn’t really understood before.  And its path to acceptance as our National Anthem is typically American: disagreement, the machinations of politics, and the voice of the people.

More next week!

Dr. Linda Gingrich

Artistic director and conductor

Master Chorus Eastside