Share this:

 

In the many years since the Titanic disaster, a great emphasis in has been placed on what music the Titanic’s orchestras did and did not play.  Since the mid-nineties, something around a dozen or so album have been released of “music played on the Titanic’, with various levels of authenticity.  Here, I will keep a comprehensive list of albums, tracks, and historical and cultural references to authenticity regarding their performance onboard the Titanic.

This page will be updated in tandem with my Reviews posts (Music Aboard the Titanic and Titanic Serenade); as I publish more reviews, I’ll update this list:

 

Track #	Name	Historical	Notes
Music Aboard the Titanic
1	Paddy O’Carrol
2	Leaving Queenstown		Composed for album
3	Oh, You Beautiful Doll		This song is mentioned in Geoffrey Marcus’ “The Maiden Voyage” but no one seems to know what the original source was
4	Alexander’s Ragtime Band	-George Brereton -Mrs. Jacques Futrelle -Major Arthur Peuchen
5	Villia (from The Merry Widow)
6	Minuet
7	I Want a Girl (Just Like the Girl That Married Dear Old Dad)
8	Maple Leaf Rag
9	Andante Cantabile
10	Song Without Words
11	Nocturne, Op. 9, No. 2
12	Blue Danube		Other versions of this song are featured in A Night to Remember and James Cameron’s Titanic
13	Berliner Luft
14	Merry Widow Waltz
15	Let Me Call You Sweetheart
16	Fateful Hour		Composed for album
17	Nearer, My God, to Thee	Eva Hart recalled running out of church sometime after the disaster because they were singing Nearer, My God, to Thee. Eva Hart was a Methodist, so it stands to reason that she heard the Propior Deo setting.	This is the “Propior Deo” version, aka, the Methodist version. Nearer, My God, to Thee was reported as having been played, but which of three versions is unknown.
Titanic Serenade
1	At Southampton		Arranged for the album, includes brief selections from Gilbert and Sullivan and Rule Britannia
2	Chocolate Soldier Medley		Logan Marshall’s The Sinking of the Titanic (published in 1912)  claims that selections from A Chocolate Solder were played as the ship sank, but no further reference is provided.
3	Jeanie With the Light Brown Hair
4	Alexander’s Ragtime Band	-George Brereton -Mrs. Jacques Futrelle -Major Arthur Peuchen (See Music Aboard the Titanic, track 4)
5	Londonderry Air		Another recording of this song is used in the 1953 film Titanic
6	Spaghetti Rag
7	Beautiful Dreamer
8	To a Wild Rose
9	Danse Hungarienne
10	Salut d’Amour
11	Barcarolle	Lucy Noël Martha, Countess of Rothes
12	Temptation Rag
13	Song d’Automne	Harold Bride recalled a song he referred to as Autumn.  Speculation exists as to whether he meant the hymn Song d’Automne (listed here), or a popular song by a similar name.
14	Funeral at Colne		Composed for album

Good evening all of everyone!

Today we feature a classic: the large Titanic Puzz3D by Wrebbit (Wrebbit made a smaller one as well) and how I think it just might have been based on the Titanic of James Cameron’s film. This 3D-puzzle came out in the late 1997, right around the time James Cameron’s Titanic came out. The puzzle measures 30-3/4″ long, by 3-1/2″ wide by 6-1/8″ tall and depicts a reasonably accurate representation of the Titanic. Like all of Wrebbit’s Puzz3Ds, the puzzle is made of foam pieces with stickers which when assembled create a three-dimensional structure.

Wrebbit’s Puzz3D Titanic

What is particularly interesting about Wrebbit’s 3D puzzle is it’s scale. The box lists the puzzle as a 1/350 scale replica of the ship and it is vaguely close. However, the ship looks too short for how tall and wide it is. In fact, if you crunch the numbers (which I did recently), you find that the length (30-3/4″ vs. 882′-9″) of the puzzle is actually 1/348 scale, the width (3.5″ vs. 92′-6″) is 1/317 scale, the height from keel to Bridge (3-3/8″ vs. 104′) is 1/369 scale and the height of the funnels (2-3/4″ vs. 71′) is 1/309 scale. So, this puzzle is all over the place, if you’re getting picky.

But Wrebbit is/was (they are a new company now) pretty accurate in their representations on 3D-puzzles, so how can we explain this? The height differences can probably be best explained as a compromise. The funnels are made out of standard-sized pieces, so they might have had to be larger so to keep the overall height consistent, they made the height of the hull shorter. Making the hull shorter might also have been an aesthetic choice, too. The puzzle depicts the area of the ship which is usually underneath the waterline, Wrebbit may have shortened the height on the hull so that the whole peice wouldn’t look “too tall” for those used to seeing it in the water (like, say, from a major block-buster movie).

However, I think the width-height scale difference was taken from James Cameron’s movie set. James Cameron’s set featured a similar difference and the puzzle was in development while the movie was being made. Although the set of James Cameron’s film was highly realistic, the giant ship set was shortened for reasons of budget. Martin Lang, Art Director on the film stated, “We took three slices of 20-foot out of the ship […] and just shunted it together.” Where these slices came from is illustrated in the photo below.

The set of James Cameron’s “Titanic”, indicating where slices of the ship were removed.

I crunched the numbers and although all of the decks on the 3D puzzle vary slightly in scale (this is do in part to the in-exactitude of using foam pieces), the biggest offender by far was the Boat Deck. The length of the Boat Deck of the Puzz3D is approximately 1/390, despite its width scale of 1/317. To me, that says that Wrebbit’s people just might have used James Cameron’s set as a reference, since it was also to a smaller length scale, despite maintaining the correct width.

Both of Wrebbit’s Puzz3Ds of the Titanic are great, and although not hyper-accurate, are still very cool to have, especially if you are into puzzles. It’s kind of interesting to think that Wrebbit might have used Jame’s Cameron’s film set and so their puzzle is the way it is. I suppose it is possible that Wrebbit’s designers and researchers just chose to do it differently for no particular reason, but I like my theory more.