The Titanic Disaster: 4 Musical Memorials
May 2012
THE TITANIC DISASTER , 15th April 1912: Four Musical Memorials
Artists, writers, actors, dancers and musicians were generous in contributing their services to fund-raising events in aid of the bereaved – and in some cases in memory of deceased colleagues. We show here selected pages from the programmes of three major matinées mounted in London within six weeks of the disaster.
Programme for the Matinée at the London Hippodrome, 30 April 1912. This was a variety programme; more than 150 performers (excluding the orchestra) included the dancer Lydia Kyasht, composer/conductors Richard and Leo Fall, violinist Marie Hall, actors Lena Ashwell, Marie Tempest, Violet Vanbrugh, Rutland Barrington and Cyril Maude, singers Constance Drever, Alice Esty and Clara Evelyn and music-hall stars Harry Lauder, George Robey and Little Tich.
Programme for the Dramatic and Operatic Matinée at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, 14 May 1912. The cover design is by Charles Buchel. More than 150 performers (accompanied by members of six London orchestras) included Sarah Bernhardt, Mrs Patrick Campbell, Anna Pavlova, Clara Butt, Louise Edvina, Giovanni Martinelli, Mario Sammarco and the violinist Mischa Elman. Writers contributing original work to the programme included G. K. Chesterton, Thomas Hardy, Alfred Noyes, Stephen Phillips and Eden Phillpotts.
Programme for the Titanic Band Memorial Concert at the Royal Albert Hall, 24 May 1912. The combined players of seven London orchestras (comprising 472 personnel) were conducted by Beecham, Elgar, Fritz Ernaldy, Mengelberg, Percy Pitt, Landon Ronald and Sir Henry Wood.
Augarde (Haydon): The Wreck of the Titanic, London, 1912. One of many hastily-produced pieces of salon music issued in London and New York within weeks of the tragedy. Haydon Augarde was one of at least 62 pseudonyms adopted by Charles Arthur Rawlings (died 1919).
