Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser
"" () was a personal anthem to Francis II, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire and later of the Austrian Empire, with lyrics by Lorenz Leopold Haschka (1749–1827) and music by Joseph Haydn. It is sometimes called the "Kaiserhymne" (Emperor's Hymn). Haydn's tune has since been widely employed in other contexts: in works of classical music, in Christian hymns, in alma maters, and as the tune of the "Deutschlandlied", the national anthem of Germany. Words and music. The lyrics are as follows: <poem>Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser, unsern guten Kaiser Franz! Lange  lebe Franz der Kaiser, in des Glückes hellstem Glanz! Ihm erblühen Lorbeerreiser, wo er geht, zum Ehrenkranz! Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser, unsern guten Kaiser Franz!</poem> <poem>God save Francis the Emperor, our good Emperor Francis! Long live Francis the Emperor in the brightest splendor of bliss! May laurel branches bloom for him, wherever he goes, as a wreath of honor. God save Francis the Emperor, our good Emperor Francis!</poem> History. The song was written when Austria was seriously threatened by Revolutionary France and patriotic sentiments ran high. The story of the song's genesis was  narrated in 1847 by Anton Schmid, who was Custodian of the Austrian National Library in Vienna: Saurau himself later wrote: I had a text fashioned by the worthy poet Haschka; and to have it set to music, I turned to our immortal compatriot Haydn, who, I felt, was the only man capable of creating something that could be placed at the side of ... "God Save the King". "Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser" was first performed on the Emperor's birthday, 12 February 1797. It proved popular, and came to serve unofficially as Austria's first national anthem. Composition. As elsewhere  in Haydn's music, it has been conjectured that Haydn took part of his material from folk songs he knew. This hypothesis has never achieved unanimous agreement, the alternative being that Haydn's original tune was adapted by the people in various versions as folk songs. For discussion, see Haydn and folk music. One claimed folk source of "Gott erhalte" is a Croatian song, known in Međimurje and northern regions of Croatia under the name "Stal se jesem". The version below was collected by a field worker in the Croatian-speaking village of Schandorf in Western Hungary (after WWI: Eastern  Austria). Irrespective of the original source, Haydn's own compositional efforts went through multiple drafts, discussed by Rosemary Hughes in her biography of the composer. Hughes reproduces the draft fragment given below (i.e., the fifth through eighth lines of the song) and writes: "His sketches, preserved in the Vienna National Library, show the self-denial and economy with which he struggled to achieve [the song's] seemingly inevitable climax, pruning the earlier and more obviously interesting version of the fifth and sixth lines, which would have anticipated, and so lessened, its overwhelming effect." The original version of the song (see  autograph score, above) included a single line for voice with a rather crude piano accompaniment, with no dynamic indications and what David Wyn Jones calls "an unevenness of keyboard sonority". This version was printed in many copies (two different printers were assigned to the work) and sent to theatres and opera houses across the Austrian territories with instructions for performance. The Vienna premiere took place in the Burgtheater on 12 February 1797, the day the song was officially released. The Emperor was present, attending a performance of Dittersdorf's opera "Doktor und Apotheker" and Joseph Weigl's ballet "Alonzo und  Cora". The occasion celebrated his 29th birthday. Not long after, Haydn later wrote three additional versions of his song: Haydn's own view of the song. Joseph Haydn seems to have been particularly fond of his creation. During his frail and sickly old age (1802–1809), the composer often would struggle to the piano to play his song, often with great feeling, as a form of consolation; and as his servant Johann Elssler narrated, it was the last music Haydn ever played: The "Kaiser Lied" was still played three times a day, though, but on 26 May  at half-past  midday the Song was played for the last time and that 3 times over, with such expression and taste, well! that our good Papa was astonished about it himself and said he hadn't played the Song like that for a long time and was very pleased about it and felt well altogether till evening at 5 o'clock then our good Papa began to lament that he didn't feel well... Elssler goes on to narrate the composer's final decline and death, which occurred on 31 May. Later uses of the tune in classical music. Later composers in the  Western classical canon have repeatedly quoted or otherwise employed Haydn's tune, as is demonstrated by the following chronological list. As the tune was widely known, the uses by other composers were heard as quotations and served as an emblem of Austria, of Austrian patriotism, or of the Austrian monarchy. Use in national anthems, alma maters, and hymns. Austria-Hungary. After the death of Francis in 1835, the tune was given new lyrics that praised his successor, Ferdinand: "Segen Öst'reichs hohem Sohne / Unserm Kaiser Ferdinand!" ("Blessings to Austria's high son / Our Emperor Ferdinand!"). After Ferdinand's abdication in 1848 , the original lyrics were used again because his successor (Francis Joseph) was also named Francis. However, in 1854, yet again new lyrics were selected: "Gott erhalte, Gott beschütze / Unsern Kaiser, unser Land!" ("God preserve, God protect / Our Emperor, our country!"). There were versions of the hymn in several languages of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (e.g., Czech, Croatian, Slovene, Hungarian, Ukrainian, Polish, Italian). At the end of the First World War in 1918, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was abolished and divided into multiple states, one of them being the residual state of Austria, which was a republic and had no emperor . The tune ceased to be used for official purposes. When the last Emperor, Charles I, died in 1922, monarchists created an original stanza for his son Otto von Habsburg. Since the emperor was in fact never restored, this version never attained official standing. The hymn was revived in 1929 with completely new lyrics, known as "Sei gesegnet ohne Ende", which remained the national anthem of Austria until the Anschluss. The first stanza of the hymn's 1854 version was sung in 1989 during the funeral of Empress Zita of Austria and again in 2011 during the funeral of her son  Otto von Habsburg. Germany. Long after Haydn's death, his melody was used as the tune for Hoffmann von Fallersleben's poem "Das Lied der Deutschen" (1841). The third stanza (which begins with ""Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit"") is sung to the same melody, and is the present national anthem of Germany and formerly of West Germany. The first verse of Fallersleben's poem was formerly the national anthem of the Weimar Republic, and later, Nazi Germany. Hymns. In the ordinary nomenclature of hymn tunes, the melody of "Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser" is classified as 87.87D trochaic metre. When  employed in a hymn it is sometimes known as "Austria", or "Austrian Hymn". It has been paired with various lyrics. Lyrics. During Haydn's lifetime, his friend the musicologist Charles Burney, made an English translation of the first verse which is more felicitous if less literal than the one given above: <poem>God preserve the Emp'ror Francis Sov'reign ever good and great; Save, o save him from mischances In Prosperity and State! May his Laurels ever blooming Be by Patriot Virtue fed; May his worth the world illumine And bring back the Sheep misled! God preserve our Emp'ror  Francis! Sov'reign ever good and great.</poem> Burney's penultimate couplet about sheep has no counterpart in the original German and appears to be Burney's own contribution. For translations into several of the languages that were spoken in the Austrian Empire, see Translations of Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser.