Conservatory-trained
Roger Marie Bricoux’s first ocean-liner gig was on the RMS Carpathia, which is
best remembered for saving survivors of the RMS Titanic, which happened to be
his last seafaring job, for obvious reasons. Considered paragons of the “show
must go on” ethos, the dignity and tragic irony of the Titanic musicians’ lives
are chronicled in Titanic—Band of Courage
(promo
here), a
PBS special airing in select markets around the country over the next two weeks
or so.
Sadly,
none of the Titanic band-members lived to gig again. As most everyone knows,
there was that whole business with an iceberg and an awkward lifeboat shortage.
Matters could have gotten really ugly, but the musicians started playing to
calm the passengers’ nerves. According to survivors, it really worked.
The
night to remember offers no shortage of drama, but for viewers who are not
Titanic junkies, Band of Courage also
offers an intriguing glimpse into the lives of working musicians during the
late Edwardian era. Essentially straddling the lower middle class and upper
working class, the ocean liner musicians were required to be proficient in a
variety of styles, including operetta, light classical, ragtime, and Tin Pan
Alley. They had to be polished enough to withstand the shallow criticism of
bored patrons and charismatic enough to earn their tip money. Scottish violinist
John Law Hume was a natural in that respect.
Technically,
there were two Titanic ensembles: a quintet and a string trio. Reportedly, they
only played together on that fateful night, but they shared a common repertoire,
collected and conveniently numbered in the Titanic songbook. To give viewers a
sense of their sound, a contemporary septet (a piano and six strings) performs
each song under discussion as various talking heads weigh in, most notably
including Hume’s grandson (whom he never met) and Steve Turner, the author of The Band that Played On.