Anthems (9) -- Afterword on that Greek National Anthem

After a few rounds of humming the Greek National Anthem (which, as I mentioned, I first heard around age ten), I realized, of a sudden, that it is written in 3/4 time.  This caught me off guard, as I tend to think of anthems as being marches (4/4 time).  One conceivably could dance a waltz to this anthem!  Yet it’s never struck me as being a waltz; I never thought of it as a waltz—and it took me roughly fifty years to realize it was in 3/4.  

 

Frankly, I don’t think it is a waltz; it’s just a tune written in 3/4 time.  A waltz is not just a melody written in threes; it has to have the feel of the dance called The Waltz.  It has to glide in the proper way.

I thought about this some part of a day, then a suspicion hit me:  The Greek National Anthem is a dance, but not a waltz.  Rather, played at the appropriate tempo (perhaps just slightly faster than its usual pace), it would make a very fine hambo.  It has the distinct rhythmic feel of a hambo.

This was another jolt; though not without its humor:  The hambo is a dance from Scandinavia (glancing now at Wikipedia, I see that the hambo itself may be related to the Polish mazurka.  I’ll have to meditate on that for a while!).

So the music of the Greek National anthem is not quite so straightforward as I’d always imagined.  It’s a beautiful tune; I always knew that; but also probably danceable; and surprisingly international as well—rather appropriate for a country we often call the Cradle of Western Civilization!