Star Spangled Songbook (hardcover)

The Star Spangled Songbook: A History in Sheet Music of "The Star-Spangled Banner" tells a largely forgotten story of the United States of America--of the symbiosis of anthem and nation--in over seventy songs with full text and performable sheet music. These all-new scholarly editions reveal the remarkable story of "The Star-Spangled Banner" beginning with the melody's roots as an 18th-c. English musicians club anthem and vehicle for early American political parodies that predate Francis Scott Key's lyric. The anthem itself is shown in twenty distinct arrangements revealing its symbolic and musical transformations from song of celebration to national hymn--from its original 1814 arrangement as a solo song with choral refrain to the World War I "Service Version" and then to Igor Stravinsky's beautiful (yet infamous) setting and a brand new through-composed version of all-four verses by American composer Michael Gandolfi. Created for vocalists, teachers, and anyone fascinated by American history.