The Original National Anthem of Uruguay

Brotherhood...

In a recent post in this Blog, I wrote that the national anthems of Paraguay and Uruguay can be considered “brother anthems” due to the fact that the lyrics of both anthems were written by the same person: Francisco Acuña de Figueroa. After an investigation carried out in recent years by César Manuel Barrios (composer, pianist and orchestra conductor), a great discovery was made public. And today, the world can see it in detail!

Francisco Acuña de Figueroa

After researching through many sources and investigation works in South America and the United States, it was discovered that the lyrics of the national anthem of Uruguay were used with a melody created by Francesco Casale, and which is in fact the melody of the current national anthem of Paraguay (arranged by Remberto Giménez in 1933).

According to the story, the President of Uruguay issued a decree on 1837 stating that the music created by Francesco Casale would be used with Figueroa’s lyrics until a new proposal for a new anthem be submitted. During the following years, many compositions were proposed but never met the standards specified by the authorities. However, during the 1840s, a new melody composed by Francisco José Debali (with the help of Fernando José Quijano) became popular.

Finally, on 1848, a new decree made Debali’s melody and Figueroa’s lyrics the official national anthem of the Oriental Republic of Uruguay. This meant that the composition created by Casale was forgotten and discarded.

After the War of the Triple Alliance, with the reconstruction of Paraguay, a new melody for the anthem of Paraguay was proposed. Prior to that time, the lyrics written by (also) Figueroa were used with a different melody. Nevertheless, a change was made after a submission of a music sheet with the melody composed by Debali many years ago. A curious thing is that, for many years, the author of the melody of the national anthem of Paraguay was unknown, and some say that it is because the original music sheet had the name of the author erased in order to hide the fact that it was created by Debali.

Today, a video with the original national anthem of Uruguay was published by YouTube user “KingWorld30”, and it shows how Figueroa’s lyrics were used with Casale’s melody.

This is truly one of the greatest discoveries regarding national anthems in South America.

For more information, you can read this article (in Spanish).

Tell us what you think about this in the comments!