Argentina
"Marcha de la Patria" (March of the Fatherland)

Words by: Vicente López y Planes
Music by: José Blas Parera
Adopted: 1813

In 1812, Vicente López attended a play about the revolution that brought the country independence two years earlier, the play concluded with an anthem sung by the actors. López was inspired to write a proper anthem for the nation instead of the one presented in the play, and it was approved by the government. The composer of the music used in the play, Blas Parera, was asked to compose the music for the anthem despite Parera's objections due to the anti-Spanish lyrics and himself being a Spaniard. The stately nature of the music, combined with its long length, make it similar in style to other anthems of the area, a group of anthems I term "Latin American epic anthems".

In the following years, the anthem underwent many modifications to tone down the militaristic and anti-Spanish nature of the song. In a presidential decree in 1900, it was declared that the first and last verses of the anthem as adopted on March 11, 1813 (rather than the full original nine verses), would be the official anthem, which remains to this day.