On a list of the country’s greatest composers, you’ll find familiar names like Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, and George Gershwin. Francis Scott Key did not compose The Star-Spangled Banner.
What is the star spangled banner song describing full#
The Maryland Historical Society counts among its most prized artifacts the original manuscript of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The document is on display in the society’s new exhibition “In Full Glory Reflected: Maryland During the War of 1812.”īut how much do you know about Key’s musical influences? And about how the song was popularized?ĭavid Hildebrand, director of the Colonial Music Institute, is an expert in early American music and has studied “The Star-Spangled Banner” in great depth, putting it into the musical context of its times. Here are eight things that might surprise you about The Star-Spangled Banner and its divisive history: 1. Over a century later, on March 3, 1931, President Herbert Hoover signed a bill into law that made Key’s patriotic song the official anthem of the United States. Exhibit A in critics’ account is the anthem’s seldom-sung third verse, which gloats at the defeat of the band who so vauntingly swore America would lose its independence: No refuge could. Inspired by what he witnessed, Key wrote an impassioned four-stanza poem, or song. Just miles from Fort McHenry, Key watched what he would later describe as the “rocket’s red glare” and the “bombs bursting in air”-and come morning, the hoisting of an American flag at the fort in victory. He successfully negotiated the release of an American prisoner there, but the British insisted that he stay on the truce ship President during the battle, from September 13-14. Long assumed to have originated as a drinking song, the melody was taken from the song To Anacreon in Heaven. After a century of general use, the four-stanza song was officially adopted as the national anthem by an act of Congress in 1931.
Francis Scott Key, a 35-year-old lawyer and budding poet from Washington, D.C., was in Baltimore in September 1814, when the British bombarded Fort McHenry. Like most national anthems, ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ is sung at the beginning of sporting events, orchestral concerts and other public gatherings. The Star-Spangled Banner, national anthem of the United States, with music adapted from the anthem of a singing club and words by Francis Scott Key. Most Americans are familiar with the story of how our national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner,” came to be.
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