New MIDI: "Café Parisien" by Oleg Mezjuev
Oleg Mezjuev
Fellow ragtimers,
I have updated the Swedish Ragtime Home Page today with my own
composition called "Café Parisien - A Melancholy Rag". I composed it
in 1990 to the memory of the musicians of the Titanic.
There were two orchestras on board the Titanic, of which one used
to play in a first-class café called Café Parisien. They played all
types of music and, of course, they played some ragtime too. The
entire repertoire of the two orchestras included 340 numbers and
the ragtime pieces were:
"Ragtime Revue"
"Plantation Songs"
"Teddy Bears' Picnic"
"Whistler & His Dog"
"Gaby Glide"
"Hitchy Koo"
"Powder Rag"
"You Made Me Love You"
"When The Midnight Choo Choo Leaves for Alabam'"
"Alexander's Ragtime Band"
"Ginger"
"Red Peper Rag"
"Red Wing"
"The Nigger's Birthday"
"Ma Dusky Maid"
"The Coon's Patrol"
"Yankee Grit"
About the musicians of the Titanic I use to say "they also played
ragtime" as a paraphrase to "they all played ragtime". After the
Titanic hit the iceberg they took their instruments with them to the
lifeboat deck and continued to play until the ship went down at 2.20
A.M. on April 15, 1912. No one of them survived.
To download this new ragtime MIDI file go to:
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/1790/
Regards,
Oleg Mezjuev
oleg.m...@mailbox.swipnet.se
Ragtimbill
>>
About the musicians of the Titanic I use to say "they also played
ragtime" as a paraphrase to "they all played ragtime". After the
Titanic hit the iceberg they took their instruments with them to the
lifeboat deck and continued to play until the ship went down at 2.20
A.M. on April 15, 1912. No one of them survived.
>>
And I read that the steamship company finally and reluctantly paid the
widows of the band their wages, but only a part, since they did not play
all of the trip . . . and then deducted from the wages the cost of their
uniforms!
Bill Rowland
2100 N. 26th
Broken Arrow, OK 74014
ragti...@aol.com
Oleg Mezjuev
On June 8, 1997 Bill Rowland (ragti...@aol.com) wrote:
> And I read that the steamship company finally and reluctantly
> paid the widows of the band their wages, but only a part, since
> they did not play all of the trip . . . and then deducted from
> the wages the cost of their uniforms!
Although I am aware of the fact that this discussion would probably
be more appropriate in alt.history.ocean-Liners.titanic, I would
like to tell you more about the musicians of the Titanic. There were
eight of them (two orchestras) on board the ship. Their employer was
"Black". The members of the orchestras were:
Wallace Henry Hartley, of Dewsbury.
(bandmaster)
George Krins, of Brixton, sometime of the Ritz Hotel Orchestra.
(violin)
Roger Bricoux
(cello)
W. Theodore Braily, of Notting Hill.
(piano)
J. Wesley Woodward, of Headington, Oxon.
(cello)
P.C. Taylor, of Clapham.
(piano)
J. Fred C. Clarke, of Liverpool.
(bass)
John Law Hume, of Dumfries.
(violin)
During the trip some of the musicians used to play at deck B in
"Café Parisien". It was one of the extra rooms on the Titanic which
the Olympic didn't have from the start (it was built there later).
"Café Parisien" was a room in connection to the French restaurant
on B-deck, where the first-class passengers used to spend some of
their time. The café was designed in French style with espaliers,
basketwork (wicker) furniture and big windows towards the sea.
Galen Wilkes wrote an interesting article about ragtime on the
Titanic in the September 1990 issue of the "Rag Times":
"...It is interesting to note that "You Made Me Love You" is
included here as it was not published until 1913 and the Titanic
sank in 1912. It is known that some songs were recorded and per-
formed before they were officially in print, however. Or, perhaps
this booklet may be from a little later; used on another ship.
Apparently all orchestras had the same repertoire. No Joplin rags
are listed - which throws off the authencity of a TV movie about
the famous ship. A number of major composers are listed: Johnson,
Lodge, Lampe, and Berlin. A few of the selections have some other
name than the composer listed, which may be the English arranger
or publisher.
This is a small percentage of a large repertoire, which con-
sisted primarily of classical, light classical and opera selec-
tions. Whether or not they got to perform any ragtime music during
the four days at sea will probably remain speculation. The last
survivor of the Titanic, Ruth Blanchard of Santa Barbara, Califor-
nia, died Friday July 6, 1990 at the age of 90. She made many
appearances on specials about the Titanic. And as for "Nearer My
God To Thee" - it was not listed among their repertoire."
Walter Lord wrote in his "A Night To Remember":
"...And there was music to lull them too. Bamndmaster Wallace Henry
Hartley had assembled his men, and the band was playing ragtime. Just
now they stood in the first-class lounge, where many of the passen-
gers waited before orders came to lower the boats. Later they moved
to the boat deck forward, near the entrance to the grand staircase.
They looked a little nondescript - some in blue uniform coats, some
in white jackets - but there was nothing wrong with their music."
...At this moment (02.15 A.M.) bandmaster Hartley tapped his violin.
The ragtime ended, and the strains of the Episcopal hymn "Autumn"
flowed across the deck and drifted in the still night far out over
the water.
In the boats women listened with wonder. From a distance there
was an agonizing stateliness about this moment. Close-up, it was
different. Men could hear the music, but they paid little attention.
Too much was happening.
...What did the band play? The legend is, of course, that the band
went down playing "Nearer My God To Thee". Many survivors still
insist this was so, and there's no reason to doubt their sincerity.
Others maintain the band played only ragtime. One man says he
clearly remembers the band in its last moments, and they were
not playing at all. In this maze of conflicting evidence, junior
wireless operator Harold Bride's story somehow stands out. He was
a trained observer, meticulously accurate, and on board to the
last. He clearly recalled that, as the boat deck dipped under, the
band was playing the Episcopal hymn "Autumn"."
Erik Fosness Hansen wrote in his book "Hymn at the End of the
Voyage" that new researches show that the last melody might well
have been "Songe d'automne", a melancholic waltz which was fairly
popular at that time.
So, what was really the last melody played on the Titanic? Was it
ragtime, or "Nearer My God To Thee", the Episcopal hymn "Autumn"
or the popular waltz "Song d'automne"? I have no answers to that.
I don't even know whether the last two melodies were the same one.
The violinist John Law Hume was 20 years young when he perished.
His parents requested compensation for the loss of their only son,
but neither the steamship company "White Star" line, nor the
impressario felt called upon this request. On the contrary, the
impressario sent his demand for payment to John's parents for the
loss of the uniform (which was impressario's own property). The
cost of the uniform was 5 shilling and 4 pence.
The total demands for payment to the steamship company were
16.804.112 USD. In the USA the "White Star" line tried to shut in
the demands in courts and succeded to minimise the expences to
97.770 USD. The surviving relatives of the musicians didn't get any
compensation at all from the "White Star" line, while their employer
"Black" and its assurance company claimed that the musicians
weren't regulary employed. The families of the musicians got some
help from different charity organisations.
John Law Hume was buried in Halifax, at the Protestant cemetary
"Fairview Lawn". J. Fred Clarke (the bassist) was also buried in
Halifax, but at the Catholic cemetary "Mount Olivet". The bandmas-
ter Wallace Hartley was found drowned and was buried in his home-
town Colne.
Afterwards, a memorial concert was held to their memory at the Royal
Albert Hall, London. 500 musicians from 7 different orchestras played
there. They were led by Sir Edward Elgar. The concert included some
organ music.
Regards,
Oleg Mezjuev
oleg.m...@mailbox.swipnet.se
--
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/1790/
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