In yet another demonstration of history becoming shorter as I grow older, at 54 I look back to realize I was born only 54 years after the tragedy of the HMS Titanic.
On this date in 1912, the Titanic sank off the coast of Newfoundland at 2:27 a.m. Over 1,500 souls were lost. But the band played on.
A number of composers wrote music to commemorate the disaster. Cyril Scott, the prolific English composer – absurdly remembered, if at all, for a piano miniature, “Lotus Land” (1905) – wrote a piece called “Disaster at Sea” (1933), a work directly related to the Titanic sinking, which he revised as “Neptune” (1935). Its large orchestra includes a wind machine and an organ. Atmospheric sea music increases in menace, until the ship is consumed in a kind of arctic wasteland.
Apparently, for Danish master Carl Nielsen, there was no such thing as “too soon.” The wreckage had scarcely settled on the ocean floor, when he embarked on a paraphrase for wind band on “Nearer, My God, to Thee” (1912). The well-known hymn is alleged to have been the last music played by the Titanic band. Essentially, Nielsen’s work turns out to be a three-minute tone poem. Stay sharp for the violent iceberg collision, or you might just spill your coffee.
The musicians of the Titanic, of course, are legendary for having gone down with the ship, playing for as long as possible, in an attempt to keep calm among the passengers. The eight-member ensemble was led by Wallace Henry Hartley, who drew on selections from The White Star Line Songbook. The White Star Line repertoire included 341 items, including light overtures, intermezzi, waltzes, marches, arias, sacred music, and potpourris. Here’s a complete catalogue:
According to an eyewitness, “Many brave things were done that night, but none were more brave than those done by men playing minute after minute as the ship settled quietly lower and lower in the sea. The music they played served alike as their own immortal requiem and their right to be recalled on the scrolls of undying fame.“
I Salonisti portrayed the ship’s band in the 1997 film “Titanic.”
I am now as far away from my birth as my birth was from the Titanic. Talk about a sinking feeling! Gentlemen, it’s been a privilege playing with you…
“The Sinking of the Titanic,” iconic illustration for the newspaper “Die Gartenlaube,” by Willy Stöwer (1912)
