Swiss Psalm - History

History

Until the end of the 19th century, there was no Swiss national anthem. The German-language patriotic song Rufst du, mein Vaterland (French Ô monts indépendants, Italian Ci chiami o patria, Romansh E clomas, tger paeis), composed in 1811 by Johann Rudolf Wyss (1743–1818), was the first national anthem, used until 1961. The Swiss Psalm was composed in 1841 by Alberich Zwyssig (1808–1854), with lyrics by Leonhard Widmer (1809–1867). Since then it has been frequently suggested it be adopted as the official anthem, but the Swiss Federal Government has refused several times, wishing to let the people decide what they want to sing on political and military occasions. The setting of the hymn to the British tune of God Save the Queen led to confusing situations when both countries' anthems were played. Therefore it was replaced with another tune in 1961. After a trial period of three years the Swiss tune was adopted indefinitely in 1965. The statute could not be challenged until ten years later but did not totally exclude the possibility of an ultimate change. A competition was set up in 1979 to search for a successor to the anthem. Despite many submissions, none of the others seemed to express the Swiss sentiment. The Swiss anthem finally got its definitive statutory status in April 1981, the Federal Council maintaining that it was purely a Swiss song suitably dignified and solemn. The popularity of the song has not been established. At least, it has been shown with several vox pops taken that many people do not know it at all, and only a small percentage can recite it all.

There are two tentative replacements for the psalm:

  1. In 1986, Roulez tambours (Roll the drums) by Romand Henri-Frédéric Amiel was proposed by the Swiss National Alliance.
  2. At the end of the 1990s, The Fondation Pro CH 98 equally tried to promote a new anthem composed by the Argovien Christian Daniel Jakob.

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