Sansoen Phra Barami

The story

"Sansoen Phra Barami" ("Praise the King") is the royal anthem of Thailand, and before 1932 it served as the de facto national anthem of Siam. Its history begins in the reign of King Mongkut. In 1851 two former British officers, Captain Impey and Lieutenant Thomas George Knox, trained the troops of King Mongkut and the Second King Pinklao in the British military tradition and adopted "God Save the King" as the honour music for the king of Siam. Phraya Srisunthonwohan (Noi Āchāryānkura) later wrote Thai words for it under the name "Chom Rat Chong Charoen".

In 1871 King Chulalongkorn visited Singapore and Batavia (now Jakarta) and found that Siam was using the same anthem as Great Britain, which then ruled Singapore. Siam needed a tune of its own. A group of Siamese traditional musicians chose "Bulan Loi Luean", a composition of King Rama II, and Chulalongkorn ordered Christopher Hewetson, a Dutch bandmaster in the Royal Siamese Army, to arrange it in western style for military band. The record of the anthem after 1871 is thin. In 1888 sheet music of the Siamese national anthem, arranged by the Russian composer Pyotr Schurovsky, was printed in Russia; its main melody is the tune played today, and research by Sugree Charoensuk of Mahidol University holds that Schurovsky composed the music to serve as Siam's national anthem.

Prince Narisara Nuwattiwong wrote several sets of words for the tune: the present words in 1886, a version for the army in 1888, three versions adopted in the schools of Siam in 1902, and words in the play Sang Thong; Prince Abhakara Kiartivongse wrote a version for the navy. In 1914 King Vajiravudh set the other versions aside and revised Narisara's words into the present text. The Wild Tiger Corps and Siamese scouts first sang it on 22 January 1914 at Ban Bo Suphan, on a march from Nakhon Pathom to the pagoda at Don Chedi, and the Ministry of Education adopted it for schools nationwide that year. The tune had also been played in two forms, the full version for the king and a half version for the Prince of the Front Palace, a custom that ended with the death of the last holder of that office, Prince Wichaichan, in 1885. In 1900 a Siamese theatre group visiting Berlin performed the anthem for the ethnomusicologist Carl Stumpf, who made its first recording on an Edison wax cylinder.

After the Siamese Revolution of 1932 a new national anthem, "Phleng Chat Siam", replaced it, and "Sansoen Phra Barami" remained an honorific song for the king. Its music was shortened for ceremonial use in the western manner under regulations dated 4 February 1935. In 1940 the government of Prime Minister Plaek Phibunsongkhram, by the 8th Thai cultural mandate of 26 April, shortened the words and replaced "Siam" with "Thai". These short versions were quietly abandoned after the Second World War, and the 1914 text returned.

The anthem is performed on state occasions and when a senior member of the royal family is present. It is played before films in cinemas and before plays, concerts and most other live performances in Thailand, and at the start and close of television and radio broadcasting. A royal regulation published in the Royal Thai Government Gazette in 2019 sets out when it is played: for the king, the queen, the Princess Royal, heirs to the throne and royal remains, and when certain royal standards are raised.

What it says

A hymn of honour to the king on behalf of his subjects, with wishes for his long and prosperous reign. The mood is solemn and devotional.

The words