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 A GIG TO REMEMBER © 1998 Chuck Saults The RMS Titanic sank at 2:20 a.m. on April 15, 1912. Within hours, the truth about what happened that night followed suit. It is not that the facts were lost, it's just that there's something about the Titanic that inspires all those who have some association with it to want to make a good story even better. It began before the ship was launched and continues to this day in several thousand movie theaters around the world. And several of the more enduring Titanic myths involve the band. According to the time-honored tale, the Titanic's band did its duty and played right up to the end. Survivors said they were playing "Nearer My God To Thee" when the ship went down and that is how these undeniable heroes are remembered today. It is an honorable story, a poignant story and -- like so many other Titanic stories -- absolutely false. In reality, there were two bands on the Titanic. The ship's regular band, led by bandmaster Wallace Hartley on first violin, included W.T. Brawley on the piano, J.L. Hume on the violin, J.F.C. Clark on the bass and J.W. Woodward on the cello. This group played during arrivals and departures, at regular midday and evening concerts and during Sunday services in the First Class lounge. There was also a trio on board that signed on to play exclusively in the Reception area of the First Class A La Carte Restaurant and Cafe Parisien. For the sake of what immortality we can give them, they were: P.C. Taylor, leading from the piano, a Belgian named Krins on the violin and a French cellist named Bricoux. The two groups maintained separate libraries, and prior to the night of the sinking, were not known to have ever played together. The only thing the two groups had in common was that, although they were members of the crew with berthings down on E Deck next to the potato washer, they were carried on the manifest as Second Class passengers. This was not an attempt at subterfuge so much as an act of defiance directed at the British Amalgamated Musicians Union on the part of the Titanic's owners, the White Star Line. Prior to 1912, musicians on British Atlantic steamers were outright members of the crew, paid £6 10s. a month plus 10s. a month for a "uniform allowance." (In today's money, about $1100 a month plus room and board.) All this changed late in 1911 when the Liverpool talent agency of C.W. & F.N. Black made deals with all the steamship lines to provide what musicians they needed at a lower cost. Henceforth, musicians wanting to work the Atlantic run would have to sign on with the Blacks and they would be paid £4 a month with no allowances. However, in order to comply with Admiralty rules, every musician would sign the Ship's Articles -- which put them under the Captain's authority -- and be paid a token sum of 1s. for doing so. In March, 1912, Union representatives met with White Star Line owner Bruce Ismay to attempt to negotiate a raise. The shilling a month paid by the line was unworthy of members of the crew, they said. Ismay countered by saying that if musicians didn't wish to be members of the crew, the White Star Line would carry them as Second Class passengers... which is how the eight members of the Titanic's bands were listed when the ship sailed -- and how they were listed when the names of the lost were released after the ship sank. But there was no question of their status after the ship collided with the iceberg. Within a half hour of the "faint grinding jar" below decks, all eight bandsmen gathered in uniform with their instruments in the First Class lounge on A Deck and began playing. One of the passengers remembered them there, playing light airy tunes with no one paying particular attention. During this final performance, survivor's accounts remember a general selection of waltzes, ragtime and light music hall tunes. The one song everyone remembers is "Alexander's Ragtime band."
Virtually all the movies -- and several survivor accounts -- place them there playing right up to the end, but at least two survivors who were on board to the end report that they quit as much as a half hour beforehand. "I do not wish to detract from the bravery of anybody," said First Class passenger A.H. Barkworth, "but when I first came out on deck, the band was playing a waltz. The next time I passed where the band had been stationed, the members had thrown down their instruments and were not to be seen." Possibly, but this should be measured against the accounts of three crew members who said the band did play almost to the end. One of these survivors, 2nd wireless operator Harold Bride, was the first to discount the notion that the last tune played was "Nearer My God To Thee," which is, by itself, one of the great Titanic myths buffeted on all sides by the truth. It should be remembered that 1912 was a melodramatic age, and survivors made claims -- generally credited at the time -- which posit a good many things that should have happened: One saw the iceberg a half hour before the crash, one survived by clinging to a fragment of the berg. Invariably, all the women claimed to have left the ship "in the last boat," and although the loss rate was higher for Third Class children than for First Class men, all accounts resolutely agree that the rule that night was "women and children first!" Somewhere, somehow, the story got out in the press that the last tune the band played was "Nearer My God To Thee." It seemed so appropriate that it subsequently became almost unanimous in the survivor's accounts; which is fine except that it means at least two thirds of them were lying. The problem is that there are at least three different versions of the hymn none of which sound even remotely like the other two. The American Episcopal version (the one played in the most recent Titanic movie release) is set to Lowell Mason's tune "Bethany." There are two English versions, the Anglicans' (and all English-made movie versions) set theirs to the tune of J.B. Dykes "Horbury," while the Methodists' set theirs to Sir Arthur Sullivan's "Propior Deo." Since Bandmaster Hartley's father was a Methodist choirmaster, we may assume he would have played the "Propior Deo." And in fact, the opening notes of this version are inscribed on his tombstone. Logic and Bride's testimony argue against all of them. To begin with, the whole idea of having the band play was to soothe the crowd and help prevent panic. If the band was playing dirges that made it clear where everyone's immediate destiny lay, they would have been working at cross purposes with their orders. The order was to keep it light and lively and that is what they did. During this final performance, survivor's accounts remember a general selection of waltzes, ragtime and light music hall tunes. The one song everyone remembers is "Alexander's Ragtime band." Having never worked together, the eight musicians had neither the time nor the inclination to work from sheet music. Whatever they played had to be common or popular enough for all of them to have known their parts beforehand and none of the variants of "Nearer My God To Thee" fit into this category. But popular conception had them playing a hymn at the end and Bride inadvertently suggested a viable alternative in an April 19 interview with The New York Times. "From aft came the tunes of the band. It was a ragtime tune," Bride said, recounting the final moments. "Then there was 'Autumn.'" And so the authoritative good gray Times reported it. True Titanic buffs, including Titanic Godfather Walter Lord, accepted "Autumn" as the final word on the subject. But, like so many newspaper stories before and since, this one was wrong, too. The Titanic disaster has attracted thousands of adherents over the years. Their umbrella organization -- the Titanic Historical Society -- is home to people who spend considerable amounts of both time and money delving into truly esoteric aspects of the wreck from who was in what stateroom or lifeboat to what the band was playing when the ship went down. And so, we are left with the question, what was the final piece? To put everything finally in its place, we turn to the testimony of a former Cunard musician, Fred Vallance. As mentioned, the music had to be light and cheerful and easy to play. None of the hymns fit the bill, but a contemporary waltz, "Songe d'Automme," colloquially known as "Autumn," did. Although it never caught on this side of the Atlantic, it was a popular hit in England at the time. According to Vallance, the British press and most seafaring musicians came to accept that this was the final piece. A British paper, in reprinting Bride's New York Times interview a week or so after the disaster, identified "Autumn" as a ragtime air, and Vallance, in an interview in the 1950s, remembered that a steward who had been on the Titanic came up to him on a subsequent voyage while he was playing it and admonished him for playing such an "unlucky" tune. Whatever the final piece was, the undeniable fact was the eight musicians played as ordered and died to a man that night; authentic heroes and justifiably honored as such after the fact by everyone except their employers. Two weeks after the disaster, the father of one violinist received a bill from the Blacks for 14s. 7d for "uniform alterations." The families applied for survivor benefits. The White Star Line refused to pay these claims since the musicians were, on their books, Second Class passengers. The Blacks referred all claims to their insurers who, in their turn, said the musicians were not employees but independent contractors. The families sued and lost. The courts said the musicians were passengers where the White Star Line was concerned and independent contractors from the Black's point of view. Sorry. The Musicians Union made one final appeal to the Line which got them nowhere. Not a penny of compensation was ever paid by the Line or the Blacks. But the heroism of the musicians was not forgotten. Among the 346 bodies recovered after the wreck was that of Bandmaster Hartley. On May 18, 1912, his expensive coffin was the focal point of a half mile long procession to his final resting place in Lancashire. The thousands who came to honor him and the other seven men made it clear they would not allow these individuals to be forgotten. Less than a year after the disaster, the Titanic Relief Fund, set up to manage the charitable contributions that poured in after the disaster, bowed to public opinion and made arrangements to pay out compensation to the bandsmens' next-of-kin. And 85 years later, embellished by myth and legend, their memory lives on. RETURN TO FEBRUARY/MARCH 1998 MAIN INDEX ------------------------------------------------------------------------ © Kansas City Jazz Ambassadors 1996-2001. All rights reserved. |
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