Bangladesh gets silver medal for its national anthem!
August 13, 2008
Bangladesh may not have the chance to win any medal in the Beijing Olympics, but the country has already won unexpected recognition for its national anthem that was played in the opening ceremony.
Alex Marshall, a freelance journalist specializing in music, tracked down every one of the 205 national anthems that might be heard at this year’s Olympic Games, and sat through an excruciating period of four and a half hour of listening to them before ranking them by musical quality.
Marshall revealed the name of his best 10 national anthems that could make their countries proud in the August 11 issue of the Guardian, the highly regarded UK newspaper, and surprisingly Bangladesh’s name came second in the list after Uruguay.
Marshal, in his report ‘And the winning national anthem is…’, said most of the national anthems in the world are tedious and only about a dozen of them are musically worth listening to.
Marshal’s intention was clear, he wanted compare the countries’ anthems musically. ‘There is no other fair way to compare…National anthems are the same the world over — a short, classical piece meant to stir up pride,’ wrote Marshall.
The national anthems of Uruguay, Bangladesh and Tajikistan shared the top three honours in his list while Mauritania, Dominica, US Virgin Isles, Senegal, Nigeria, Nepal and Japan also made it in the top 10.
‘A wonderful anthem that sounds like it was written for a stroll along the Seine,’ said Marshal about Bangladesh’s ‘Amar Sonar Bangla’ while delivering his verdict.
‘It really needs Jacques Brel, which is probably not what the Bangladeshi composer had in mind,’ he said, referring to the legendary Belgian lyric writer.
‘After listening to 205 of them I have realised there are actually just two types of anthems: the perfunctory, lifeless ones, and those that make the effort to be different. It’s a shame that 190 fall into the first group,’ said the writer.
The long article ended with a verdict on Bangladesh that said though the country’s six athletes (who did not actually qualify) have no chance of winning a medal, they should be cheered for their music.
Source: New Age
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