And the Band Played On: Hypotheses Concerning
What Music Was Performed Near the Climax of
the Titanic Disaster
Presented at the October, 1999
meeting of the Southwest Regional Chapter
of the American Musicological Society,
Rice University, Houston.
Full
text, with illustrations, is available online.
.
This
forensic musicological
investigation is an effort to resolve disputes that began within days
after the sinking of the Titanic. Reports of the playing of "Nearer,
My God, to Thee" by the ship's string orchestra under the leadership
of Wallace Hartley gave rise to an enduring legend but were countered by
the conclusion that the sacred piece was the hymn tune "Autumn."
The issue is further complicated by there having been four different settings
of "Nearer, My God, to Thee," no one of which would have been
familiar to all reporting witnesses. A more recent hypothesis is that "Autumn"
was not the hymn tune but the waltz "Songe d'Automne," by Archibald
Joyce.
The investigator examines previous views, extra-musical factors, and the
results of computer-assisted
analyses of the various pieces reported or postulated. The conclusions
are 1) that "Autumn" was, in fact, "Songe d'Automne," not
the hymn tune,
2) that there emerged both a rationale and a brief opportunity for the
subsequent playing of "Nearer, My God, to Thee," most likely
to Sir Arthur Sullivan's "Propior Deo," and 3) that "Propior
Deo," if it was played, was recognized for what it was by British
survivors and, at the same time, confused with Lowell Mason's "Bethany"
by both American and Canadian survivors. The analytical procedure, developed
by the investigator in connection with his doctoral
dissertation on oral-aural melodic transmission, points up significant, and
in some cases striking,
similarities of not only period openings and closings but also complete
contours at surface-, middle-, and deep-structural levels.
