site.btaSofia Philharmonic Makes New Recordings of Bulgarian and European Anthems

The Sofia Philharmonic and conductor  Nayden Todorov, who is currently caretaker culture minister, made new digital recordings of the anthems of Bulgaria and Europe, the orchestra said. 

They will be uploaded on the government website, from where they can be downloaded free of charge. 

The new recordings have been made at Bulgaria Hall and the meet the technical requirements of the new era. 

Todorov said that in the 21st century, the era of Internet and AI, Bulgaria deserves to have a digital version of the original Bulgarian anthem and the European anthem. 

The national anthem of Bulgaria was composed and written by Tsvetan Radoslavov as he left to fight in the Serbo-Bulgarian War in 1885 and was adopted in 1964.  The text has been changed many times, most recently in 1990.   

In 1972 the Council of Europe adopted the Ode to Joy as its anthem.  In 1985, it was adopted by EU heads of state and government as the official anthem of the then European Community – since 1993 the European Union.  Friedrich Schiller wrote the poem "An die Freude" ("To Joy") in 1785 as a "celebration of the brotherhood of man". After Schiller's death, the poem provided the words for the choral movement of Ludwig van Beethoven's 9th Symphony.