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National Museums Liverpool Blog - The haunting music of the Titanic

 Monday, January 30, 2012

The haunting music of the Titanic


Monday 30 January 12

three musicians playing string instruments

Catherine Johnson from the exhibition team has news of a special and very haunting piece of music that is bound to send shivers down the spines of visitors to this year's Titanic exhibition:



A very special and extremely poignant arrangement of the hym 'Nearer my God to Thee' has been recorded for the upcoming exhibition Titanic and Liverpool: the untold story, opening at the Merseyside Maritime Museum on 30 March 2012.

The Titanic's band were said to have played the hymn as the ship was sinking. Working with local composer Tom Moss, who prepared the arrangement, and three world class musicians, we aimed to recapture this emotional aspect of the sinking. All the members of Titanic's band played until the last moments before going down with the ship.

There were local connections to Liverpool within Titanic's band - including John Frederick Preston Clarke, who lived in Wavertree, Liverpool and Wallace Henry Hartley, who previously worked on the Cunard liner Mauretania before joining Titanic as band master. The band were recruited by the music agents Messrs CW and FN Black, who had offices at 14 Castle Street, Liverpool.


Posted by Sam | 30/01/2012 11:50   | Comments [0]

Posted in: exhibitions | merseyside maritime museum
Tagged with: music | titanic

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