The accession of Charles III made recordings of God Save the Queen redundant, with the official lyrics updated to reflect the fact that a man is on the throne paying homage to a “noble king”. However, since Queen Elizabeth II became monarch in 1952, there is no reason for anyone to release a version of God Save the King in the last 70 years. A handful of earlier recordings were made, but they used more basic technology with vintage gramophone records in mind. The only high-quality version of the current British national anthem readily available on streaming services such as Spotify is by Arnaud Kientz, 51, an opera singer and teacher from Paris. He said he made his version in 2017 while recording other hymns. “I’m an opera singer and they asked me to record La Marseillaise,” he said. “Perhaps the only hymns that are more famous in the world are God Save the Queen and the American one. The following year they asked me to record God Save the Queen – and God Save the King.’ Kientz said there was no specific plan to have a version ready for Charles’s inclusion. “We weren’t thinking about the Queen’s death at all and we’re very sorry about it, the whole world is,” he said. “The woman was so important in our lives.” Kientz’s recording of God Save the King had been largely ignored, but has recently been played hundreds of thousands of times as people search for a version with the right words. Many public events simply play the unaltered instrumental version, but for now it is a Frenchman who has the market for the lyrical version of the British national anthem to himself. Some labels have started changing the titles of old recordings of God Save the Queen to promote search results on streaming services, and other recordings are likely to be released soon. Welsh soprano Katherine Jenkins has already made one for the BBC, but it is not commercially available. . For now, it’s much easier to find a recording of Liechtenstein’s national anthem Oben Am Jungen Rhein – High Above the Young Rhine – an ode to the microstate’s alpine location that shares the same tune as its British counterpart. Kientz, who has toured the UK, said he didn’t expect the recording of God Save the King to bring in much income: “I really like that hymn because it’s very vocal, you have a lot to do. I didn’t do it for the money, I did it for the pleasure,” he said.
