
How many national anthems are plagiarised? - Tideflat
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34052000
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masswerk
Missing: The German national anthem.

This was actually the anthem of the Austrian monarchy (introduced in 1797, in
official use from 1826 until the end of the monarchy in 1918). Some Austrians
are still hearing the original text ("Gott erhalte, Gott beschütze / Unsern
Kaiser, unser Land!") whenever the "Deutschlandlied" is played.

Before the "Deutschlandlied" was introduced in 1922, the Prussian anthem "Heil
Dir im Siegerkranz" was in common, but not official use in the German empire
(1871). This one used, like many others, the melody of Britain's God Save the
King/Queen.

[Edit] The anthem of the Habsburg-empire is a bit tricky in terms of
plagiarism: The melody was composed by Joseph Haydn in commission by Franz II.
(later Franz I.), but was also part of the "Kaiserquartett" (op. 76 no. 3,
also 1797). Here, there are some similarities to an earlier composition by
Mozart ("Exsultate, jubilate").

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kw71
Isn't the current German national song "Deutschland Ueber Alles" modified in
some way like omitting the first verse?

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masswerk
Since 1991 it's the third verse only ("Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit …").

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saint_fiasco
After Paraguay lost most of its population in a huge war in the 1870s, there
was literally nobody alive who could remember the entire Paraguayan national
anthem, and all written records were lost.

So our lyrics of our National Anthem now consist of all the fragments people
could kinda remember all smashed together, including some parts that make no
sense (Can any Spanish speaker tell me what the word "infausto" is supposed to
mean?).

The gaps in the melody were filled by copying La Marseillaise, I believe.

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omegant
There you have: infausto, infausta adjetivo formal [hecho, situación] Que trae
desgracia y causa tristeza, dolor o sufrimiento moral. "un infausto recuerdo;
nadie quiere hablar del infausto día en que fueron derrotados" Adj. situation
that brings disgrace and causes sadness or pain.

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saint_fiasco
Thank you. Just knowing for sure that it is an adjective helps a lot. That
word appears pretty far from the noun it's supposed to modify, so it was not
obvious.

This is the first line of the Paraguayan National Anthem:

"A los pueblos de América infausto tres centurias un cetro oprimió"

Parsing that sentence is a common exam question for college admissions.

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chipsy
I once browsed through the lyrical content of national anthems for common
themes. The typical republic's theme consists of: "kill the tyrant, the people
will rise, we will not be defeated." There are little variations among them
that reference particular struggles in their history, but in most ways they're
more similar than different.

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scardine
The Brazilian national anthem is said to be a mashup of several compositions
of the time, including the French anthem: you can sing "Allons enfants de la
patrie!" in place of "Ouviram do Ipiranga as margens plácidas"

There are also several bars ripped off from Paganini.

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mcv
The article incorrectly mentions _God Save the Queen_ as the first national
anthem. The oldest national anthem in the world in the Dutch _Wilhemus_. The
first to be officially recognized as national anthem is the Spanish _La Marcha
Real_. _God Save the Queen_ is younger than _Wilhelmus_ , and was never
officially recognized as national anthem; it's really just a very popular
song.

See:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_historical_national_an...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_historical_national_anthems)

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colomon
This articule weird because it's holding the anthems to a standard that
doesn't make much sense. In traditional music and hymns, tunes and words are
semi-independent, and it is completely routine for one tune to have multiple
sets of words set to it, or one set of words to have multiple tunes.

If you claimed you wrote the tune when you borrowed it, sure, that's
plagiarism. But setting words to an existing tune while acknowledging that you
are doing so is perfectly okay.

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AReallyGoodName
New Zealand has to have the funniest one. It's just Twinkle Twinkle Little
Star played a bit slower.

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chewxy
To some extent I think all inventable music has been invented. I can't
remember the exact piece, but you can even hear parts of Advance Australia
Fair in a Beethoven piece!

But it's interesting how even countries share melodies

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delinka
How about American high school (or even college & university) fight songs?

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jaredsohn
I think it is a bit much to expect each high school to compose a fight song
from scratch.

I played in the marching band for our high school's football and basketball
games and most (probably all) schools in our conference just used college
fight songs with modified lyrics. (Our school song was Notre Dame's fight
song, another school had On Wisconsin, etc.)

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iamdave
My school's was Purdue's fight song in a different key and time signature; I
think possibly syncopated. I only learned it in an AP music theory class so
there's a good chance hardly any of the student body or general public even
knew (unless they were alumni or students of music themselves). But we were
also in the state of Indiana so...I suppose by that measure it was probably
more a matter of admiration/local support than straight copying.

I ended up going to IU, so the joke's on them :P

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yellowapple
Doesn't even mention the Star-Spangled Banner, which is literally Francis
Scott Key's "Defence of Fort McHenry" sung to the tune of "To Anacreon in
Heaven".

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rsfinn
It's discussed explicitly in the fourth paragraph from the end. (Well, it
doesn't name the poem used for the lyrics, but that's not really the point of
the article.)

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yellowapple
Ah, I guess I missed that. Thanks.

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TazeTSchnitzel
The European anthem, quite deliberately, is the final movement of Beethoven's
9th Symphony, without the usual lyrics (Ode an die Freude).

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analog31
"Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal." \-- Stravinsky

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themartorana
Well, maybe. But who knows for sure?

[http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/03/06/artists-
steal/](http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/03/06/artists-steal/)

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analog31
That's great. You see, the quote even applies to quotes. ;-)

