page_title: Legends and myths regarding the Titanic
section_title: Titanic's band
hierarchical_section_title: Legends and myths regarding the Titanic / Titanic's band
caption_attribution_description: English: Photographs of Titanic's musicians published by the Amalgated Musicians Union after the sinking. Français&#160;: Photographies des musiciens du Titanic publiées par le principal syndicat de la profession peu après le naufrage. Figurent de gauche à droite et de haut en bas&#160;: George Krins, Wallace Hartley, Roger Bricoux, Theodore Brailey, Percy Taylor, Wes Woodward, John Clarke et John Hume.
context_page_description: There have been several legends and myths surrounding the RMS Titanic over the years. These have ranged from the myth about the ship being unsinkable, to the myth concerning the final song played by the ship's orchestra.
context_section_description: One of the most famous stories of Titanic is of the ship's band.  On 15 April the eight-member band, led by Wallace Hartley, had assembled in the first-class lounge in an effort to keep passengers calm and upbeat. Later they moved on to the forward half of the boat deck. The band continued playing, even when it became apparent the ship was going to sink, and all members perished.
  There has been much speculation about what their last song was. A first-class Canadian passenger, Vera Dick, and several other passengers, alleged that the final tune played was that of the hymn "Nearer, My God, to Thee". Hartley reportedly once said to a friend if he were on a sinking ship, "Nearer, My God, to Thee" would be one of the songs he would play. But Walter Lord's book A Night to Remember popularised wireless operator Harold Bride's 1912 account (New York Times) that he heard the song "Autumn" before the ship sank. It is considered Bride either meant the hymn tune by François Barthélemon known as "Autumn" or the tune of the then-popular waltz "Songe d'Automne" but neither was in the White Star Line songbook for the band. Bride is one of only two witnesses who were close enough to the band, as he floated off the deck before the ship went down. Some consider his statement to be reliable. Dick had left by lifeboat an hour and 20 minutes earlier and could not possibly have heard the band's final moments. The notion that the band played "Nearer, My God, to Thee" as a swan song is possibly a myth originating from the wrecking of SS Valencia, which had received wide press coverage in Canada in 1906 and so may have influenced Dick's recollection.
  There are three, very different versions of the hymn using the lyrics of "Nearer, My God, to Thee": Horbury, written in 1861 by the Rev John Dykes was popular in Britain, and another, Bethany, written in 1856 by Dr Lowell Mason was popular in the U.S. The third tune associated with the hymn, Propior Deo, was written by Sir Arthur Sullivan and was also popular in Britain. Additionally, the British melody might sound like the other hymn ("Autumn"). On 24 May 1912, the seven chief London orchestras performed at a memorial for the musicians who perished, as they played Horbury, two Titanic survivors in the audience became emotional and stated that this was the tune they heard while they were in their lifeboat. The film A Night to Remember (1958) uses the tune Horbury; while the 1953 film Titanic, with Clifton Webb, uses the tune Bethany as does James Cameron's 1997 Titanic. To further complicate things, Horbury was the Anglican version of the hymn, while Propior Deo was the Methodist version. The Titanic's bandmaster, Wallace Hartley was a devout Methodist and son of a Methodist choirmaster leading a band containing several devout Methodists. Propior Deo was not only sung at Hartley's funeral but was also carved into his headstone.  Recently, another possibility has been raised. Among items left behind by Hartley's fiancée, Maria Robinson, was the sheet music of a third tune to the hymn written by Lewis Carey in 1902 and made popular by the Australian contralto Ada Crossley. As Crossley performed in both Britain and America, it is possible that this may have been a tune known to passengers on both sides of the Atlantic.
  Colonel Archibald Gracie, an amateur historian who was aboard the ship until the final moments, and was later rescued on a capsized collapsible lifeboat, wrote his account immediately after the sinking but died from his injuries eight months later. According to Gracie, the tunes played by the band were "cheerful" but that he didn't recognise any of them, claiming that if they had played "Nearer, My God, to Thee" as claimed in the newspaper, "I assuredly should have noticed it and regarded it as a tactless warning of immediate death to us all and one likely to create panic."
caption: The eight members of Titanic's band.
exif: {}