Harking back to the Olympics, there have been numerous fascinating musical aspects of this global celebration to discuss, beginning with the spectacular opening ceremony and 2008 drummers playing in astonishingly precise synchronisation on the allegedly ancient fou drum (of which more later); the performance of the fetching young singer, nine-year-old Lin Miaoke, who was subsequently discovered, as VOA reported, to be "lip-synching" her great anthem for the world to the haunting voice of another girl, seven-year-old Yang Peiui, who was perceived by Chinese officials to have "a chubby face and crooked teeth";.and finally, the widely published accusation that the renditions of the individual national anthems, as played by the Olympic musical ensemble at the presentation of each Gold Medal, were plagiarized from the distinctive orchestral arrangements of an American musician, Peter Breiner, and recorded (and hence widely available) on a major international CD label, Naxos. While I'll not attempt today a more extensive blog post today on these subjects, I will close with the first of many general questions pertaining to music that I hope to pose, and discuss with others in this space--the journalistic whats, wheres, whens, hows, and whys:
Why does every nation have a national anthem? How, and when and where, did the genre originate; and what is its significance?
More to come. . . .