God Save the Queen

: This article is on the British patriotic anthem. For the Sex Pistols song, see God Save the Queen (Sex Pistols song).

History

The origin of the tune is surrounded by uncertainty, speculation and a certain amount of misinformation. In the Oxford Companion to Music, Percy Scholes devotes about four pages to this subject. He points out the similarities to an early plainsong melody, although he points out that the rhythm is very distictly that of a galliard and gives examples of several such dance tunes that bear a striking resemblance to God Save the Queen. He quotes a keyboard piece by Dr. John Bull (1619) which has some strong similarities to the modern tune (rather more or less like it, depending on the placing of accidentals which, at that time, were, in certain cases, unwritten and left to the discretion of the player). He also points to several pieces by Henry Purcell, one of which includes the opening notes of the modern tune, set to the words "God save the King".

Related Topics:
Percy Scholes - Plainsong - Galliard - John Bull - Accidentals - Henry Purcell

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The first definitive published version of the present tune appeared in Thesaurus Musicus, in 1744, as a setting of the familiar first verse. Undoubtedly, the song was popularized in the following year (with the landing of the Young Pretender). It was certainly sung in London theatres in 1745 with, for example, Thomas Arne writing a setting of the tune for the Drury Lane Theatre.

Related Topics:
Young Pretender - Thomas Arne - Drury Lane Theatre

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Scoles' analysis includes mention of "untenable" and "doubtful" claims, as well as "an American misattribution". Some of these are:

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• A tale, widely believed in France, that the tune was written by Lully for Louis XIV, then pirated by Handel. Scholes points out gross errors of date which render these claims untenable and they have been ascribed to a 19th-century forgery, the Souvenirs of the Marquise de Créquy.
• James Oswald. He is a possible author of the Thesaurus Musicus so may certainly have played a part in this story, but is not a strong enough candidate to be cited as the composer of the tune.
• Dr. Henry Carey. Scholes refutes this attribution, firstly, on the grounds that Carey himself never made such a claim. Secondly, when the claim was made by Carey's son (as late as 1795), it was accompanied by a request for a pension from the British Government on that score; thirdly that the younger Carey claimed that his father had written parts of it in 1745 (despite the fact that the older Carey had died in 1743!). It has also been claimed that the first public performance of the work was when Carey sang it during a dinner in 1740 in honour of Admiral Edward Vernon who had captured the Spanish harbour of Porto Bello (then in Colombia, now Panama) during the War of Jenkins' Ear.

Scholes recommends the attribution; 'traditional' or 'traditional; earliest known version by John Bull (1562-1628)'. The English Hymnal (musical editor Ralph Vaughan Williams) gives no attribution, stating merely '17th or 18th cent.'.

Related Topics:
English Hymnal - Ralph Vaughan Williams

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Traditionally, the first performance was thought to have been in 1745, when it was sung in support of George II after the defeat of his army at the Battle of Prestonpans by the Jacobite claimant to the British throne, Bonnie Prince Charlie, whose forces were mostly Scottish. To express this support verse 6 was added, but as its call to crush the rebels now suggests an anti-Scottish sentiment it is rarely (if ever) sung nowadays.

Related Topics:
1745 - George II - Battle of Prestonpans - Jacobite - Bonnie Prince Charlie

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Joseph Haydn was impressed by the use of "God Save the King" as a national anthem during his visit to London in 1794 and on his return to Austria wrote a national anthem, the God Save Emperor Franz ('Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser'), for the birthday of the Emperor Franz of Austria. The tune of God Save the King was later adopted for the Prussian national anthem "Heil Dir im Siegerkranz".

Related Topics:
Joseph Haydn - London - 1794 - Austria - God Save Emperor Franz - Emperor Franz of Austria

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