Face to sun

Face to the sun is the anthem of the Spanish Falange de las JONS. It was carried out by a group of writers summoned by José Antonio Primo de Rivera together with Agustín de Foxá and other members of the party leadership, based on a piece of music by Juan Tellería, whose composition, from 1935, was originally titled Amanecer en Cegama .

History

On November 17, 1935, the Falange leadership began to see the need to have a hymn for the group. It was at the exit of a meeting when the convenience of being able to sing a hymn at acts like that was seen.

At the premiere of the film La bandera, José Antonio Primo de Rivera summoned other Falangists, such as María Jesús Mora, Rafael Sánchez Mazas, José María Alfaro and Dionisio Ridruejo, for a meeting at the Madrid bar La Cueva del Orkompon, located at Calle Miguel Moya, 4. On December 3, 1935, the so-called squad of poets met, made up of José Antonio Primo de Rivera, José María Alfaro, Agustín de Foxá, Dionisio Ridruejo, Pedro Mourlane Michelena, Jacinto Miquelarena, Rafael Sánchez Mazas and the Marquis de Bolarque.

Primo de Rivera's directive was clear:

Our hymn must be a joyous song, free of hatred, but at the same time war and love. We will make a verse to the bride, then an allusion to the eternal guard in the stars, and then another to victory and peace.

With irony, the founder of the Falange threatened to give a dose of castor oil to anyone who missed the meeting (convened on December 3, 1935).

In a few hours of work, the Face to the Sun was composed, which would be presented at the meeting of the Europa cinema in Madrid on February 2, 1936.

The famous tenor Miguel Fleta, a Falangist, provided his voice to interpret it.

After the end of the Civil War, it became one of the official Francoist anthems along with the Royal March and the Oriamendi March.

In 1972 an update was made, giving it a Pop rhythm but it was prohibited by the authorities, not authorizing it until February 1974.

In April 2000, the State obtained the original score of this hymn, titled in its day by Tellería as Canto de guerra y paz de Falange Española, for a price of 2,100 000 pesetas, leaving it deposited, along with other scores by the Gipuzkoan musician, in the National Library.

Currently, the Face to the Sun continues to be sung at all events organized by the Spanish Falange and on symbolic dates of Francoism, such as November 20, despite the fact that the Falange does not consider its link to be adequate to Francoism.

Influence

In July 1955, in Argentina, anti-Peronist sectors blew up bombs at the Peronista Superior School and the Mundo Peronista publishing house. The coup leaders composed their own hymn, written by Manuel Rodríguez Ocampo: the Freedom March, whose lyrics and music refer to the hymn of Cara al sol. This military march would be symbol of the dictatorship calling itself the Liberating Revolution, which overthrew the government of Juan Domingo Perón in 1955. During the dictatorship of Pedro Eugenio Aramburu, combining a great deployment of his propaganda apparatus, the March was forced into schools.