National Anthem - Creators

Creators

Most of the best-known national anthems were written by little-known or unknown composers such as Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle, composer of "La Marseillaise" and John Stafford Smith who wrote the tune for "The Anacreontic Song", which became the tune for "The Star-Spangled Banner". The author of "God Save the Queen", one of the oldest and best known anthems in the world, is unknown and disputed. Very few countries have a national anthem written by a world renowned composer, some exceptions are Germany, whose anthem "Das Lied der Deutschen" uses a melody written by Joseph Haydn and Austria, whose national anthem "Land der Berge, Land am Strome" was sometimes credited to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

A few anthems have been composed by Nobel prize winners. India and Bangladesh adopted two songs written by the first Asian Nobel prize winner and noted Bengali poet/author Rabindranath Tagore as their national anthems, Jana Gana Mana and Amar Shonar Bangla, respectively. This is a very rare occasion where one person is the author of the national anthems of two different countries, if not unique. Nobel prize winner Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson wrote the lyrics for the Norwegian national anthem Ja, vi elsker dette landet. Other countries had their anthems composed by locally important people. This is the case for Colombia, whose anthem's lyrics were written by former president and poet Rafael Nuñez, who also wrote the country's ancient constitution.