The Swiss roots of Lesotho's national anthem
The fact that the national anthem of Lesotho has roots in Basel is hardly known here or there. Musicologists at the University of Basel have now investigated the surprising history of this old song in southern Africa.
Today's national anthem of Lesotho is based on a sequence of notes that the Basel music teacher Ferdinand Samuel Laur (1791-1854) wrote down in Basel almost 200 years ago. It is a run-of-the-mill melody of the kind produced by dozens of choral conductors at the time: catchy and triumphant, but also harmless and interchangeable. The song spread as a school, drinking and patriotic song with varying lyrics, first in Switzerland and then in France.
Matthias Schmidt, head of the Department of Musicology, and his assistant Andreas Baumgartner are interested in how this ordinary piece of music was able to become an important piece of national identity much later. They researched Lesotho's archives and documented how local choirs sang different versions of Laur's piece of music. "The intensity of the singing was impressive, because music is still very present in everyday life in Lesotho today," the researchers summarize their impressions.
More info (with videos):
https://www.unibas.ch/de/Aktuell/News/Uni-Research/Lesothos-Nationalhymne-wurde-in-Basel-komponiert.html
The picture shows the Basel musicologists Matthias Schmidt and Andreas Baumgartner (outside) with the Lesotho choir "Black is Beautiful" (Lehlonolo Kele, Lebohang Ntloi, Katleho Tlali, Mathebe Kopo and Alain Amstutz from Swiss TPH).
