Argentine National Anthem - History

History

The first anthem was the Patriotic March, published on November 15, 1810 in the Gazeta de Buenos Ayres. It had lyrics by Esteban de Luca and music by Blas Parera. This original anthem made no reference to the name of Argentina or an independentist will, and talked instead about Spain being conquered by France in the Peninsular War, the absolutist restauration began by the Council of Regency, and the need to keep the republican freedoms achieved so far in the Americas: "Spain was victim / of the plotting Gaul / because to the tyrants / she bent her neck / If there treachery / has doomed a thousands cities / let sacred freedom and union reign here / Let the father to the sons / be able to say / enjoy rights / that I did not enjoy".

In mid-1812, the ruling triumvirate ordered the Buenos Aires Cabildo to commission a national song. Cayetano Rodríguez, a Franciscan friar, wrote a text that was approved on 4 August. The Catalan musician Blas Parera, music director of the local theater, set it to music and premiered it with the orchestra he conducted on 1 November.

Less than a year later, the Assembly of Year XIII estimated that the song was not effective enough to serve as a national symbol. On 6 March 1813, several poets were asked to submit lyrics. The poem by the lawyer Vicente López y Planes was unanimously considered the best. It was approved as the "sole national march" (única marcha nacional) on May 11, 1813. Parera was asked to compose a new musical setting around the same date. He must have finished the piece in a few days. Oral tradition has it that the premiere took place on May 14, 1813 at the home of the aristocrat Mariquita Sánchez de Thompson, but there is no documentary evidence of that. If this episode is true, then Parera, contrary to certain misconceptions, wrote quickly and under no visible coercion. He again conducted the official premiere in the theater on May 28, and was rewarded with 200 pesos.

The song includes a line advancing part of the centralist views in Buenos Aires ("Buenos Aires opposes, and it's leading the people of the illustrious Union"), but in many other lines it goes beyond the Argentine theater of the Spanish American wars of independence and references the events taking place in Mexico, Central America, Northern South America, and Upper Peru. The growing ideas of independence are reflected in lines such as "On the surface of Earth now rises a Nation glorious and new, her head is crowned with laurels, and a Lion lies at her feet". With it, it's not just the Spanish absolutism the enemy, but Spain itself.

The composition was then known as Canción Patriótica Nacional (National Patriotic Song), and later simply as Canción Patriótica (Patriotic Song), but in Juan Pedro Esnaola's early arrangement, dated around 1848, it appeared under the title Himno Nacional Argentino, and the name has been retained until today. In the complete version of the Anthem of May (as was christened by López) it is noted that the political vision portrayed is not only Argentine, but Latin American. The lyrics are ardently pro-independence and anti-Spanish, as the country was at that time fighting for its independence from Spain.

The song became popular immediately. Within ten years, documented performances took place throughout Argentina, and in Chile, Peru, and Colombia, countries that employed the song until suitable replacements were created. An unwanted consequence of this popularity was the emergence of different versions, negatively affecting mass singing. For this reason, several reforms were proposed. In 1860, Esnaola was commissioned to create an official version. He took the task at heart, introducing a considerable number of musical changes, including a slower tempo, a fuller texture, alterations to the melody, and enrichment of the harmony. In 1927, a designated committee produced a historicist version that undid several of Esnaola's changes, albeit introducing new problems in the sung line. After a heated public debate fueled by the newspaper La Prensa, this version was rejected and, following the recommendations of a second committee, Esnaola's arrangement was officially reinstated. In 1944, it was confirmed as the official anthem.

Along the 19th century, the anthem was sung in its entirety. However, once the harsh feelings against Spain had disappeared, and the country had become home to many Spanish immigrants, a modification was introduced by a decree by President Julio Argentino Roca on March 30, 1900. The decree read as follows:

In this way the lyrics which contained vivid attacks against Spain stopped being sung publicly.