La Marseillaise

"La Marseillaise" (English: "The Song from Marseille"; ) is the national anthem of France. The song, originally titled "Chant de guerre pour l'Armée du Rhin" (English: "War Song for the Army of the Rhine") was written and composed by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle in 1792. The French National Convention adopted it as the Republic's anthem in 1795. The name of the song is due to first being sung on the streets by volunteers from Marseille.

The song is the first example of the "European march" anthemic style. The anthem's evocative melody and lyrics have led to its widespread use as a song of revolution and its incorporation into many pieces of classical and popular music (see below: Musical quotations).

History
On 25 April 1792, the mayor of Strasbourg requested his guest Rouget de Lisle compose a song "that will rally our soldiers from all over to defend their homeland that is under threat". That evening, Rouget de Lisle wrote Chant de guerre pour l'Armée du Rhin and dedicated the song to Marshal Nicolas Luckner, a Bavarian in French service from Cham. The melody soon became the rallying call to the French Revolution and was adopted as La Marseillaise after the melody was first sung on the streets by volunteers (fédérés in French) from Marseille by the end of May. These fédérés were making their entrance into the city of Paris on 30 July 1792 after a young volunteer from Montpellier called François Mireur had sung it at a patriotic gathering in Marseille, and the troops adopted it as the marching song of the National Guard of Marseille. A newly graduated medical doctor, Mireur later became a general under Napoléon Bonaparte and died in Egypt at age 28.

The song's lyrics reflect the invasion of France by foreign armies (from Prussia and Austria) that were underway when it was written. Strasbourg itself was attacked just a few days later. The invading forces were repulsed from France following their defeat in the Battle of Valmy.



The Convention accepted it as the French national anthem in a decree passed on 14 July 1795, making it France's first anthem. It later lost this status under Napoleon I, and the song was banned outright by Louis XVIII and Charles X, only being re-instated briefly after the July Revolution of 1830. During Napoleon I's reign, Veillons au Salut de l'Empire was the unofficial anthem of the regime, and in Napoleon III's reign, it was Partant pour la Syrie. During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, "La Marseillaise" was recognised as the anthem of the international revolutionary movement; as such, it was adopted by the Paris Commune in 1871. Eight years later, in 1879, it was restored as France's national anthem, and has remained so ever since.

Arrangements
"La Marseillaise" was arranged for soprano, chorus and orchestra by Hector Berlioz in about 1830.

Franz Liszt wrote a piano transcription of the anthem.

During World War I, bandleader James Reese Europe played a jazz version of "La Marseillaise", which can be heard on Part 2 of the Ken Burns TV documentary "Jazz".

Serge Gainsbourg recorded a reggae version in 1978, titled "Aux Armes, Et Caetera".

Henrik Wergeland wrote a Norwegian version of the song in 1831, called "The Norwegian Marseillaise".

In Peru and Chile, both the Partido Aprista Peruano and the Socialist Party of Chile wrote their own versions of "La Marseillaise" to be their anthems.

Musical quotations

 * During the French Revolution, Giuseppe Cambini published Patriotic Airs for Two Violins, in which the song is quoted literally and as a variation theme, with other patriotic songs.


 * Gioachino Rossini quotes "La Marseillaise" in the second act of his opera Semiramide (1823).


 * Robert Schumann used part of "La Marseillaise" for "Die beiden Grenadiere" (The Two Grenadiers), his 1840 setting (Op. 49, No. 1) of Heinrich Heine's poem "Die Grenadiere". The quotation appears at the end of the song when the old French soldier dies. Schumann also incorporated "La Marseillaise" as a major motif in his overture Hermann und Dorothea, inspired by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and quotes it, in waltz rhythm, in the first movement of Faschingsschwank aus Wien, for solo piano.


 * Richard Wagner also quotes from "La Marseillaise" in his 1839–40 setting of a French translation of Heine's poem.


 * Giuseppe Verdi quotes from "La Marseillaise" in his patriotic anthem Hymn of the Nations, which also incorporates "God Save the King" and "Il Canto degli Italiani". In his 1944 film, the Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini also incorporated "The Internationale" for the Soviet Union and "The Star-Spangled Banner" representing the United States.


 * In 1882, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky quoted "La Marseillaise" to represent the invading French army in his 1812 Overture. He also quoted the Russian national anthem he was familiar with, to represent the Russian army. However, neither of these anthems was actually in use in 1812.


 * In 1896, Umberto Giordano briefly quoted the anthem in his opera Andrea Chénier.


 * Claude Debussy quoted the anthem in the coda of his piano prelude, Feux d'artifice.


 * Edward Elgar quoted the opening of "La Marseillaise" in his choral work The Music Makers, Op. 69 (1912), based on Arthur O'Shaughnessy's Ode, at the line "We fashion an empire's glory", where he also quoted the opening phrase of "Rule, Britannia!".
 * Heitor Villa-Lobos quoted "La Marseillaise" in his 3rd ("War") and 4th ("Victory") Symphonies (both 1919). In the finale of No. 3, fragments of it form a collage with the Brazilian national anthem.


 * Dmitri Shostakovich quoted "La Marseillaise" at some length during the fifth reel of the film score he composed for the 1929 silent movie, The New Babylon (set during the Paris Commune), where it is juxtaposed contrapuntally with the famous "Can-can" from Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld.


 * Max Steiner weaves quotes from "La Marseillaise" throughout his score for the 1942 film Casablanca. It also forms an important plot element when patrons of Rick's Café Américain, spontaneously led by Czech underground leader Victor Laszlo, sing the actual song to drown out Nazi officers who had started singing "Die Wacht am Rhein", thus causing Rick's to be shut down.


 * Django Reinhardt released in 1946 a jazz version of La Marseillaise in his song Echoes of France.


 * The Beatles hit single of 1967, "All You Need Is Love", used the opening bars of "La Marseillaise" as an introduction.


 * Serge Gainsbourg released in 1979 a reggae version of La Marseillaise in his song Aux armes et cætera.


 * In 2009, thrash metal band Metallica played their version of "La Marseillaise" as an intro to "Master of Puppets". This was recorded live as part of their DVD Français Pour Une Nuit ("French for a Night") from Nîmes.

Musical antecedents
Several musical antecedents have been cited for the melody:
 * Mozart's Allegro maestoso of Piano Concerto No. 25
 * the credo of the fourth mass of Holtzmann of Mursberg
 * the Oratorio Esther by Jean Baptiste Lucien Grison

Lyrics
Only the first verse (and sometimes the fifth and sixth) and the first chorus are sung today in France. There are some slight historical variations in the lyrics of the song; the following is the version listed at the official website of the French Presidency.
 * FP National anthem (MP3 audio file).

Additional verses
These verses were omitted from the national anthem.

Historical use in Russia
In Russia, La Marseillaise was used as a republican revolutionary anthem by those who knew French starting in the 18th century, almost simultaneously with its adoption in France. In 1875 Peter Lavrov, a narodist revolutionary and theorist, wrote a Russian-language text (not a translation of the French one) to the same melody. This "Worker's Marseillaise" became one of the most popular revolutionary songs in Russia and was used in the Revolution of 1905. After the February Revolution of 1917, it was used as the semi-official national anthem of the new Russian republic. Even after the October Revolution, it remained in use for a while alongside The Internationale.

In popular culture

 * Robert A Heinlein named La Marseillaise in a series of motivational songs routinely sung by the recruits at boot camp in "Starship Troopers".
 * Django Reinhardt used the theme in "Échos de France."
 * The Beatles used the song as an introduction to "All You Need Is Love."
 * Neil Hannon used the primary melody for The Divine Comedy's 1996 single "Frog Princess."
 * Jimi Hendrix, during a 1967 Paris concert, played a psychedelic version of the anthem.
 * Frank Sinatra, as part of "French Foreign Legion."
 * In 1978, Serge Gainsbourg recorded a reggae version, "Aux armes et cætera," with Robbie Shakespeare, Sly Dunbar and Rita Marley in the choir in Jamaica.
 * "La Marseillaise" is quoted in Rossini's 1813 opera, L'italiana in Algeri during the choral introduction to Isabella's 2nd act aria "Pensa alla patria."
 * The song's theme was used by Jacques Offenbach in his Opera "Orpheus in the Underworld" to illustrate a revolution amongst the Olympic gods and goddesses with the lines "Aux armes Dieux et Demi-Dieux."
 * The song occurs in the Monty Python's Broadway musical Spamalot when confronted by French knights in the song "Run Away!"
 * In the RKO film Joan of Paris (1942), "La Marseillaise" is sung by a classroom full of young schoolchildren as the Gestapo hunts their teacher, a French Resistance operative.
 * "La Marseillaise" was famously used in Casablanca at the behest of Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid) to drown out a group of German soldiers singing "Die Wacht am Rhein." It was also played during the closing card of the movie.
 * "La Marseillaise" was used in the film Escape to Victory, also known as Victory.
 * In the biopic La Vie en Rose, chronicling the life of Edith Piaf, ten-year-old Edith is urged by her acrobat father to "do something" in the middle of a lackluster show, and she amazes the audience with an emotional rendition of "La Marseillaise."
 * The British comedy series 'Allo 'Allo! spoofed Casablanca by having the patriotic French characters start singing "La Marseillaise," only to switch to Deutschlandlied when Nazi officers enter their cafe.
 * The Brisbane Lions Football Club who play in the(AFL) team theme song is "The Pride of Brisbane Town" and it is sung to the music of "La Marseillaise." This song was adapted from the Fitzroy Lions song, also sung to the same music, used since the 1950s.
 * At the end of Guy de Maupassant's novella Boule de Suif, which is set against the backdrop of the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, the character Cornudet whistles and sings "La Marsellaise" for hours during a long carriage ride in order to torment his fellow passengers.
 * The song is also featured in Isaac Asimov's short science fiction story Battle-hymn, about how the national anthem is used as a subliminal advertising ploy.
 * The carillon of the town hall in the Bavarian town of Cham plays "La Marseillaise" every day at 12.05 pm to commemorate the French Marshal Nicolas Luckner, who was born there.
 * Short after the composition of the original song, the Greek revolutionary Rigas Feraios, composed the Greek version of La Marseillaise (Sons of Greeks, Arise!), that became the hymn of war against Ottoman rule and kind of Greek national anthem during the Greek War of Independence (1821–1830).
 * The 19th-century Labour movement used a "Worker Marseillaise" (written 1864 by Jakob Audorf) that was later replaced by The Internationale. It was famously sung on the way to the gallows by those sentenced to death after the Haymarket Riot.
 * On the Belgian national holiday former Prime Minister Yves Leterme, a native speaker of Dutch, when asked by a Walloon journalist if he knew his national anthem in French, without giving it a moment of thought. fluently sang the first line of La Marseillaise instead of the "Brabançonne." His televised confounding was seen as funny in Flanders, but negative reactions from Walloon media and politicians required Leterme to make a public apology.
 * In the episode 'France' of the cartoon Histeria!,which is about the French Revolution and Napoleon Bonaparte,snippets of La Marseillaise(instrumental) can be heard at different parts of the episode.This is because the French national anthemn was composed during the Révolution Française.