# Star Spangled Banner Contest (1 Round)



## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Who does the best job singing the national anthem of the best country in the world?


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Mary Costa.
What? NO Marian Anderson?


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

I'm abstaining on the premise that I don't agree with the OP.


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## KevinW (Nov 21, 2021)

Lol, let's see the finest of American patriotism here under this thread.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Ponselle is not recorded well so it is hard for me to tell about her except that she rules on the lower lying passages.. Of these Louise Homer was the strongest. My favorite opera singer on this piece Renee Fleming because that optional high note she takes that Whitney Houston takes that is so thrilling ( Whitney is my favorite version by far ).


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

There was an attempt to change the National Anthem to "God Bless the USA" in the 1980s. Not enough support for it, I guess.


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## BachIsBest (Feb 17, 2018)

Actually, it takes a Canadian to sing the star spangled banner. Here in Canada, we do everything better than our southern underpants.


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## vespertine (Jun 4, 2019)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> Who does the best job singing the national anthem of the best country in the world?


Funny, I don't see Denmark's national anthem posted.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Seattleoperafan said:


> Ponselle is not recorded well so it is hard for me to tell about her except that she rules on the lower lying passages.. Of these Louise Homer was the strongest. My favorite opera singer on this piece Renee Fleming because that optional high note she takes that Whitney Houston takes that is so thrilling ( Whitney is my favorite version by far ).


I also take that note FreeeeEEEE one octave up.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Tsaraslondon said:


> I'm abstaining on the premise that I don't agree with the OP.





Tsaraslondon said:


> I'm abstaining on the premise that I don't agree with the OP.


Nor do I, really.


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## Shaughnessy (Dec 31, 2020)

Just so long that no one forgets that it was an Irishman who wrote the tune that Francis Scott Key nicked -

"However, the more likely writer of the famous melody is the greatest composer Ireland ever had – Turlough O’Carolan, the last of the Irish bards. The O’Carolan song regarded as the “ancestor” of (the) national anthem is his 1723 tune “Bumper Squire Jones,” which honors one of the composer’s patrons. Proof you demand? “ Bumper Squire Jones” is in fact metrically identical to Key’s famous song."

"Many believe the tune “Bumper Squire Jones” came to London where decades later John Stafford Smith added his own words to it, transforming it into a drinking song called “Anacreon in Heaven”. This song, a big hit during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, traveled across the Atlantic, where it was modified and used by Key as the melody for (the) national anthem."

*Is “The Star Spangled Banner” a Traditional Irish Melody?*

No need to thank us, Yanks - Just send the royalty checks...


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

This is an international forum and I certainly don't think this is the finest country on earth. I do like our US National Anthem although I wish it were changed to America the Beautiful.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I like this one.


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## Op.123 (Mar 25, 2013)

Agreed with others, America is in no way the greatest country on earth, not unless you're an evangelist maybe.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Shaughnessy said:


> Just so long that no one forgets that it was an Irishman who wrote the tune that Francis Scott Key nicked -
> 
> "However, the more likely writer of the famous melody is the greatest composer Ireland ever had – Turlough O’Carolan, the last of the Irish bards. The O’Carolan song regarded as the “ancestor” of (the) national anthem is his 1723 tune “Bumper Squire Jones,” which honors one of the composer’s patrons. Proof you demand? “ Bumper Squire Jones” is in fact metrically identical to Key’s famous song."
> 
> ...


Yes, I'm aware. We took it and made it better. Just like Japanese took western art and turned it into anime, Europe took Chinese fireworks and made gunpowder and canons and Italians took New World tomatoes and made lasagna. 

All the same, both the original inspiration and the creator who synthesizes it into something better deserve credit.


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## PedroHz (Dec 5, 2021)




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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> I like this one.


Kute. It's also kute that the original music for the German and Austrian anthems were also written around that period.


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## SARDiver (Jan 6, 2014)

Wait, no Roseanne Barr?


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

My favorite version is this. She has a strong voice throughout her compass and also the forthright manner the anthem demands. Plus she phrases well. She gets the gold star from me! 

An operatic voice is “wrong” for this piece as far as I’m concerned

However, in my opinion it’s a supremely difficult song to sing and quite a complicated bunch of words.






Though I love living here, the U.S. is no longer the best place in the world in which to live, though I’d be hard-pressed to pick another country. I haven’t lived everywhere.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Why is this thread in the opera forum? Asking for a friend! It would seem to me to be better placed in the vocal music forum. Just a thought.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Barbebleu said:


> Why is this thread in the opera forum? Asking for a friend! It would seem to me to be better placed in the vocal music forum. Just a thought.


Perhaps because all of the contestants are opera singers… but it’s a very good point!


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Barbebleu said:


> It would seem to me to be better placed in the vocal music forum. Just a thought.


There was a whole discussion of the issue in








Mahler's 5th banned??







www.talkclassical.com




and BalaBoy gave his answer (#10)


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

MAS said:


> Perhaps because all of the contestants are opera singers… but it’s a very good point!


Also possibly because it is very much like an actual aria in it's range and drama, both high and low,which is why opera singers are often best at it. It was never a good karaoke choice! Whitney Houston was one of the very few pop singers who could handle the range and even interpolated a high C. If I post an opera singer singing pop here, no one EVER pays attention to the post. This is a strict crowd. Very serious- opera only!


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

But it’s not an aria and it doesn’t come from an opera and it only sounds good when sung by a large group of singers, like at a football game!😂


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## ALT (Mar 1, 2021)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> ….of the best country in the world?


The best country in the world is forever open to debate. Ours (the USA) cannot be said to be it currently, based on many factors such as lack of personal safety (e.g., mass shootings), the unstoppable increase in the cost of living, destructive left wing and right wing ideologies and agendas, the collapse of education (and, with it, culture), the chipping away at democracy, etc etc etc. But the potential of a great country in some distant future remains. Only time will tell. As for national anthems associated with military might, as ours is, count me out.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Barbebleu said:


> But it’s not an aria and it doesn’t come from an opera and it only sounds good when sung by a large group of singers, like at a football game!😂


It's still a song, it's just that it's not "art".











ALT said:


> destructive left wing and right wing ideologies and agendas, the collapse of education (and, with it, culture), the chipping away at democracy, etc etc etc.


+charismatic politicians


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

I only think that this thread is in the wrong forum. I have no objections to the actual thread itself. I rather like the SSB for what it is.


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