Other composers have tackled anthems in other ways — David Lang’s suite “the national anthems” repurposed anthem lyrics to reveal how, as he put it in 2017, “our civilization is very fragile, and we are terrified of losing it.”
But if Barakatt’s anthems are more about music than message, there are constraints that pose a challenge. “Usually an anthem is very short and straightforward,” he said, and “has a very strong melody that most people could remember.” The shortness and strictness of the form, he added, sets anthem-writing apart from, say, jazz, “where you have improvisation, or songs with long lyrics.”
Barakatt — whose first solo album, recorded when he was 14, became one of Canada’s 20 best-selling recordings within a week of its release in 1987 — said he did not set out to be an anthem composer. “I wrote a lot of music in my 20s,” he said, “and I realized people used my music for their TV shows. The train in Korea used my music at every stop. I was this composer of the music of daily life, and I thought, why not do it officially? There is a difference between having your music out there like that and when it is official.”
Anthem writing followed a career that began when he was 13 and appeared as a soloist with l’Orchestre symphonique de Quebec. That was also when he started playing jazz. “Jazz was kind of the door to start composing,” he said, “because when you improvise, it’s the beginning of composition.”
He said “Lullaby,” the anthem he wrote for UNICEF, came in 2009 after he had breakfast with Harry Belafonte, a longtime good-will ambassador for the organization. “He explained to me how he put together the ‘We Are the World’ campaign, and then he said, ‘Why don’t you create an anthem for UNICEF?’” recalled Barakatt, who had been named an ambassador for UNICEF Canada in 2007. “I said, ‘Great idea, but I cannot do it myself.’ I said, ‘I need you, Harry.’ He was the godfather of that anthem.”
