The Sinking Of The Titanic (1969- )

The first 4 minutes of this work starts with the sounds of crackling.An ancient blues record from the 20s?.The sound of ice breaking?
Not really its representative of the wireless static as the sounds of time passed and it plays a part in the story of the Titanic.
Gavin Bryars opus of trance inducing and dreamy evocation of the Titanic's final moments is a work of conceptual genius which began after being inspired by one Harold Bride the surviving wireless operator who half remembered the name of the hymn the orchestra was playing as the ship went down-the Episcopal hymn Autumn and this weaves in and out until the music ends.
Voices appear at times of survivors,sounds of morse code tapping and even bottles rolling across the deck.
This 2007 remake of the original Sinking of the Titanic is a collaboration between the Italian chamber group Alter Ego,the Danish experimentalist Philip Jeck and Bryars himself who plays bass.
And after a music box theme it stops dead

There are four earlier recordings of this piece: the first from 1975 (to fit on one side on vinyl), the second from 1990. The 1990 version was an hour long track, and sonically 'challenging' - it was partially recorded in a huge water tank and the music evolves/degenerates into an atonal rumble that requires a good sound system. But it's a fascinating, raw, experience, if hard to find now. The 1994 Point Music version took elements of that recording and was a smoother experience, with lots of fascinating sound effects. It was handily divided into sections - my favourite being the one including bass clarinet, as it resembles Bryars's less experimental works, and is haunting all on its own. The Smith Quartet's 'Ghost Stories' album of 2007 included a fifteen-minute reworking. All of these versions are different, all valid, and can be bought safely without fear of duplication. The spoken samples on each, for instance, are obscured to different degrees, and the opening and closing sections each offer an alternative conceptual reading of the piece.
This new version is the most radical. The piece as already recorded does not even register as the same until over ten minutes in. Preceding it is a strange radio-static crackle not unlike that which opens Pink Floyd's 'Division Bell' - the idea of 'communication' being behind both. My copy does not have points, as Amazon indicates, but is one long seventy-two minute track. Sound effects and individual instruments are well defined, with some fascinating new additions and expansions.
What the piece has in common with the others is the enfolding string quartet wash. I am lucky never to have found it repetitive, but always curiously comforting. Long may this piece have even more interpreters!
This disc is packaged in a greetings card-sized folder, with the disc itself in a paper sleeve. Full notes are printed, to help newcomers understand the brilliant idea behind this ongoing aural artwork.

As other reviewers have noted, the choice of sample for this download is unfortunate. Indeed, anyone approaching this piece for the first time needs to have patience as well as plenty of time. The introductory static lasts four minutes, to be replaced by low string sounds which develop into a sad, hymn-like tune of great beauty that is developed through the rest of the piece. Bryars has referred to the ship's orchestra which continued to play throughout the sinking. A listener might see this also as some kind of affirmation sustained throughout the process of dissolution, marked by events such the noise made by people scrambling for lifeboats when the order to abandon ship was given. There has been much debate about what they played, but as a passenger's testimony, quoted as the piece progresses, notes, they did play to the very end. In a later documentary (on YouTube) the composer explains the final section in terms of the ship's orchestra playing under the waves, a picture evoked in the 'watery' sounds he has created.

The approaching centenary of the 'Titanic' disaster makes this a timely offering from Amazon, available as a download at a knock-down price.