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Thursday, September 03, 2009

My national anthem, your love song. So?

And just when you thought that our national anthem was copied from an Indonesian love song.......it now turns out that in addition to the Indonesian Terang Bulan, there is a Hawaiian love song with exactly the same melody. Not that I care really. The NegaraKu will always be the national anthem of my country. The fact that to some other people it is a lovely song of romance just adds to it. So now, sit back and enjoy....

UPDATE

And now it turns out that we all, Malaysians, Indonesians and Hawaiians had better say merci beau coup to the French. Why? It seems like the controversial melody was actually an adaptation of “La Rosalie,” which was composed in the 19th century by Pierre-Jean de Beranger of France.

Oh wait...we have said thank you already. Remember? They paid a good commission and we bought their submarines. Merci!Niamah!!! Hahahahaha......

18 comments:

i dont know what the fuss is all abt coz the song was first played in 1901 at the installation ceremony of King Edward VII whereas, mamula moon was from an album in 1947 and terang bulan, the indonesian version was made in the 1930's....a repeated story of the egg and the chicken....

Sylado, speaking in Jakarta on Wednesday, said the so-called Indonesian song “ Terang Bulan ” (“Moonlight”) was actually an adaptation of “La Rosalie,” which was composed in the 19th century by Pierre-Jean de Beranger of Francey.

Citing a Dutch historical text on national anthems, Sylado said the song became popular in the former French colony of the Seychelles and arrived in the Malay archipelago at the turn of the 20th century, where it was eventually used as the basis for Malaysia’s anthem, “ Negaraku ” (“My Country”).

“It is written clearly that ‘Negaraku,’ the Malaysian anthem, is adapted from Pierre-Jean de Beranger’s song. Not from ‘Terang Bulan,’ ” Sylado said.

He said the adaptation of “La Rosalie” to “Negaraku” had a long evolution. In 1888, during British rule of the Federated Malay States, the lyrics were rewritten and localized to “God Save the Sultan” by Raja Mansur, the eldest son of Sultan Abdullah Muhammad Shah II Habibullah of Perak.

The song was first performed formally during the sultan’s royal visit to England, where the song was presented as the Perak state anthem.

Sylado said this version of history had long been recognized by the Malaysian authorities and was used in the nation’s history books. He said that before declaring independence in 1957, Malaysia’s first prime minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman, decided to use a revised version of Perak’s state anthem as the national anthem.

additional info on history:"Negaraku" was selected as a national anthem at the time of the Federation of Malaya's independence from Britain in 1957.

At the time of independence, each of the eleven States of Malaya that made up the Federation had their own anthem, but there was no anthem for the Federation as a whole. Tunku Abdul Rahman, organized and presided over a committee for the purpose of choosing a suitable national anthem. On his suggestion, a worldwide competition was launched. 514 entries were received from all over the world. None deemed suitable.Next the committee invited elected composers of international repute to submit compositions for consideration. The composers chosen were Benjamin Britten, Sir William Walton who had recently composed the march for Queen Elizabeth II's coronation, the American opera composer Gian Carlo Menotti and Zubir Said, who later composed the National Anthem of Singapore. They were all turned down too.

The Committee then turned to the Perak State Anthem. On August 5 1957 it was selected on account of the "traditional flavour" of its melody. New lyrics for the National Anthem were written jointly by the Panel of Judges— with the Tunku himself playing the leading role.At the time this melody was, while still the State Anthem of Perak, also a well-known and popular Malay song under the title, Terang Bulan ("Bright Moon").The song had been very popular on the island of Mahé in the Seychelles. where Sultan Abdullah of Perak had formerly been living in exile. He heard it at a public band concert on the island, a song to a popular French melody, La Rosalie, originally composed by the lyricist Pierre Jean de Beranger (1780-1857), who was born and died in Paris.

Sultan Idris of Perak was invited by Queen Victoria to go to London in 1888, the year after he was proclaimed Sultan. He was accompanied by Sir Hugh Low, the British Resident of Perak and he took Raja Mansur, eldest son of Sultan Abdullah Muhammad Shah II Habibullah, with him as his ADC. When their ship reached Southampton a representative of the British Government came on board and asked Raja Mansur -in his capacity as the Sultan's ADC - to give him the music of the Perak State Anthem so that it could be played when His Highness was given a ceremonial welcome. Raja Mansur thought it would be undignified to reply that Perak had as yet no State Anthem, so he decided to create one. He explained that he had not brought the music with him but he could hum or play the tune if someone could take down the notes, and when the Bandmaster arrived he hummed the music of his favourite tune from the Seychelles.

When the Bandmaster had gone ashore Raja Mansur went to the Sultan and told him what he had done and when they drove in state to Buckingham Palace he reminded the Sultan that when he heard the tune he must stand to attention himself as it was now his own State Anthem. From that day onwards Perak adopted this as its official Anthem and was probably the first Malay State to have one.

The tune was later introduced into an Indonesian Bangsawan (Opera), which was performing in Singapore. In no time at all, the melody became extremely popular and was given the name Terang Bulan.

The difference is whether it is the song or the tune. One tune can have lots of songs - for instance, the ABC song we learn in school is the same as Twinkle Twinkle little star and was written by Mozart.

The tune is just a simple way of remembering the song. So it doesn't really matter what song they attach to the tune, be it la rosalie, terang bulan, Perak anthem or Negara ku.

For Malaysian nationals, it is the words that should be important, not where the tune comes from. Do they understand the words - do they know what it means? I sang it blindly and didn't bother finding out the meaning until I was in Form 4. I didn't even know it was the same as the Perak anthem until I attended a sports event. Without the tune, it is just a poem: a lot more difficult to remember. I'd really struggle to remember the words if I was reciting the NegaraKu as a poem.

Yea , so what if they are similar songs....if a tune is good and appropriate, we use it !!SO WHAT? Half the national anthems in the world have similiar tunes either in 1 line even 2 lines of somewhat similiar melody.BIG DEAL!!! move on!!! its nice to know the truth behind things ,besides it adds colour to life!!! So for those bigots ,idiots who want to dispel things for the sake of feeling violated....p**s o*f !!