Before going to a wedding ceremony, the Polish bride sings one particular song built on the pentatonic scale, that has probably been sung for more than two thousand years! There are other wedding ceremony songs that can be traced back almost as far.
In Brittany, during the 11th and 12th centuries, the priest demanded a “nuptial song” from the newly-weds on the Sunday following the wedding, as a wedding tax!
In another place the feudal lord demanded that every new bride should dance and sing before him and in return he decorated her with a bonnet of flowers.
You haven’t forgotten the Indian and his love music played on the flute, have you?
(4) Patriotic Songs
In the recent World War, we had examples of how folk songs were made. There were popular songs like Over There (George Cohan), The Long, Long Trail (by Zo Elliot), Tipperary, Madelon, that were sung by millions. They were songs of the people, by the people and for the people, and no one cared who wrote them.
Most of the national hymns and patriotic songs were born in a time of storm and stress. Words inspired by some special happening were written on the spur of the moment, and often set to some familiar tune. America was first sung to the tune of God Save the King on July 4, 1832. The words of Star Spangled Banner were written by Francis Scott Key during the War of 1812 as he watched the bombardment of Fort McHenry in Chesapeake Bay, and was set to an English drinking song, Anacreon in Heaven. Yankee Doodle, a song first sung to make fun of the young colonists, became the patriotic hymn of the Revolution! Where the tune came from is a mystery, but it shows a family likeness to a little Dutch nursery song, a German street song, an old English country dance, a folk tune from the Pyrenees and one from Hungary! But we love our old Yankee Doodle anyhow! Hail Columbia was adapted to a tune, The President’s March, which had accompanied Washington when he was inaugurated, in New York, as our first president.
England’s God Save the King was composed, words and music, by Henry Carey, and it was used first in 1743 during the Jacobite uprising. It has since served America, Germany, Denmark and Switzerland. Auld Lang Syne of Scotland was written by “Bobby” Burns and set to an old Scotch tune. St. Patrick’s Day was originally a jig, and The Wearing of the Green was a street ballad of the Irish rebellion of 1798 mourning the fact that the Irish were forbidden to wear their national emblem, the shamrock. The Welsh song Men of Harlech, a stirring tune, dates from 1468.
The French have several thrilling national songs. If you heard Malbrouk s’en va-t-en guerre (Malbrouk to war is going) you would say, “Why! that’s For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.” So it is, and it has had a long and chequered career. It is supposed to have been brought into Europe by one of the Crusaders, and was lost for five centuries; it cropped up again in 1781 when Marie Antoinette sang it to put the little Dauphin (the French prince) to sleep. Paris picked up the tune and it was heard in every café and on every street corner. Napoleon who had no ear for music hummed it. It crossed the English channel. Even the Arabs sing a popular song like it which they call Mabrooka. Beethoven used the air in a Battle Symphony (1813).
The stirring hymn of France, is the Marseillaise written by Rouget de l’Isle (1792) on the eve of the Revolution. It became the marching song of the French Army and was sung during the attack on the Tuileries (Paris), the king’s palace. It has always been the Republican song of France.