After the AGA has adopted its anthem, the EGF follows suit.

On the basis of the letters on a musical scale, the American Go Association theme was determined to be A-G-A.

And thus, the Toccata in D minor (BWV. 565) by J. S. Bach (1685-1750) was selected as the AGA anthem. This was approved last week by AGA president Andy Okun himself.

In this well-known classical piece, the A-G-A theme is repeated three times in simple octaves, making it stand out gloriously from the rest of the piece.



Finding an anthem of equal fame for the EGF has proven difficult. Few pieces feature the E-G-F theme as prominently as the Toccata by Bach does A-G-A.

An extensive search throughout the musical library yielded a few possible candidates, and the selection was narrowed down to a couple pieces after eliminating all the „E-G-F sharp“s.

The final choice by the EGF musical committee fell on the second movement Allegretto Scherzando from Ludwig van Beethoven‘s 8th Symphony.

Beethoven (1770-1827) has also composed what is now known as the Anthem of Europe. Thus it was deemed fit that he write the EGF anthem as well.

In Allegretto Scherzando, the theme is not just a simple E-G-F, but it‘s multiplied to E-G-F-E-G-F-E-G-F. The entire E-G-F-E-G-F-E-G-F is, albeit transposed, repeated several times throughout this movement.



Since this piece is purely instrumental, lyrics have been assigned:
„European Go Federation“ is to be sung each time the theme appears.

Congratulations to Beethoven!


One of the promising candidates that did not make the cut is O mio Fernando from the opera „La Favorita“ by Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848).

Even though E-G-F is well-represented in this serene melody, this song ultimately fell through because nobody knew who Fernando was and what his relation to the EGF would be.



Lastly, the fifth movement from „Impressions de Music Hall“ (Op. 47) by Gabriel Pierné (1863-1937) at first seemed like the ideal candidate.

However, this piece was judged unsuitable to serve as the EGF anthem, not because this movement is titled Musical Clowns, but due to the upbeat character of the first E and the resulting emphasis on the Gs. This makes the theme sound like G-F-E (gfe.mp3) rather than E-G-F (egf.mp3).