Stravinsky's Bit

Searching about for a vehicle through which I might best express my gratitude at the prospect of becoming an American citizen, I chose to harmonize and orchestrate as a national choral the beautiful sacred anthem The Star-Spangled Banner.

It is a desire to do my bit in these grievous times toward fostering and preserving the spirit of patriotism in this country that inspires me to tender this my humble work to the American people.

A new version of The Star-Spangled Banner, published last week, bore those words on the cover. The words and music were by a sometime modernist ear-splitter, a onetime Russian aristocrat, Igor Stravinsky. At first toot, the author of the raucous thumps and blats of The Rite of Spring (played in Walt Disney's Fantasia) hardly seemed a likely rearranger for the national anthem. But the Stravinskian Star-Spangled Banner, despite its slight Russian accent, is a genuinely spacious and stirring piece. It should be welcomed by conductors who, under the ukase of Boss James Caesar Petrillo of the musicians' union, now play it at every symphony and opera performance. Stravinsky and his publisher (Mercury Music Corp.) have waived performance fees.

The tune of The Star-Spangled Banner, which has been the official national anthem for only a decade, is an old British drinking song.* It is usually played without arrangement, so that every performer "fakes" to his heart's content.

* It was the club song of London's 18th Century Anacreontic Society. Called To Anacrcon in Heaven, it was written by John Stafford Smith, the society's organist. Author Francis Scott Key. although believed to be tone-deaf, was apparently familiar with the original song. Congress, tone-deaf to such entreaties as the tune's unsingability as well as its convivial origins, made the anthem official in 1931.

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