Oranjes are out

I had spent Friday in Rotterdam and witnessed an orange migration heading out of town to Basel for the Netherlands-Russia Euro 08 quarter final. The Dutch have made a huge impact here - more than any other nation - both with their attractive football and festive enthusiasm. I should have gone to Basel to capture some of the excitement live, because now, unfortunately, they are going home. Actually the Russians are worthy successors for the "attractive football" mantle, and I now have them installed as my tournament favourites.

As noted elsewhere, I still have two of my favourite national anthems in the running. Russia will potentially meet Italy in the semi final, so one of them will have to go. Germany are favorites in the other semi final, so we are probably going to have a nice musical confrontation. The earnest, but still quite stirring music of Haydn up against either the panache of the Italian, or the soulful slavic emotion of Russian.

In another post I inaccurately attributed the Italian anthem to Verdi, whereas the music was composed by Marmelli, a little known student. Verdi did however use the theme in his contribution for the London International Exhibition of 1862

Like everything else in Italy, the history and status of the "official" national anthem is anything but clear cut.