16 July—Credit to the French where it’s due: their tricolor flag and their national anthem.

Flag first. Three colors, red white blue, just like ours. Except their tricolore is bleu blanc rouge, blue white red. But the three colors are in solid vertical blocks, easy to draw. And you don’t have to remember how many red stripes and how many white stripes or the placement of the stars in the blue union.

On the other hand, while the stars and stripes can be flown upside down to indicate distress, how is that done with the tricolore? Some would say the French solved that problem with a plain white flag. But not I.

“La Marseillaise,” then, is the national anthem of France. It was written—words and music—in 1792 by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle, an army officer, after the declaration of war by France against Austria, and was originally titled “Chant de guerre pour l’Armée du Rhin” (“War Song for the Army of the Rhine”). Not that it matters, but Rouget de Lisle was a contemporary of our Marquis de Lafayette.

“La Marsellaise” was adopted as the First Republic’s anthem in 1795 and has remained to this day. The song acquired its nickname after being sung in Paris by volunteers from Marseille marching to the capital.

While the words were his own, Capt. Rouget de Lisle cleverly lifted the tune from the delightful “Tema e variazioni in do maggiore,” for violin and chamber orchestra, written 11 years earlier by Giovanni Battista Viotti.

The lyric of “La Marseillaise” is typical of national anthems, not really worth comment. So, under the French tricolor, enjoy Viotti’s chamber piece, Berlioz’ ca. 1830 “La Marseillaise” arrangement for soprano, chorus, and orchestra, lyric tenor Georges Thill’s 1931 recording, and Liszt’s piano transcription: