The Sinking of the Titanic (Bryars)

[1] Bryars' inspiration for the work came from a report that the wireless operator Harold Bride on the Titanic had witnessed the house band continue to perform as the ship sank.

That, and the way Phillips (the senior wireless operator) kept sending after the Captain told him his life was his own, and to look out for himself, are two things that stand out in my mind over all the rest.."[2] Bryars imagined that the sound would continue to reverberate as it disappeared under the waves.

Writing in 1993, Bryars said "the music goes through a number of different states, reflecting an implied slow descent to the ocean bed which give a range of echo and deflection phenomena, allied to considerable high frequency reduction".

[3] Bryars frequently participated in the Music Now series of concerts organised by Victor Schonfield in London in the early 1970s, usually with pianist John Tilbury.

[3] Schonfield was keen to showcase Bryars' music and in December 1972 organised a concert at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall.

In 2012, the centennial year of the disaster, the Gavin Bryars Ensemble, Philip Jeck and artists Bill Morrison and Laurie Olinder presented a series of concerts with accompanying archival film images of the Titanic synched live to the music.

In late 1970 Eno contributed woodwind to Bryars' "orchestra" the Portsmouth Sinfonia, along with other performers including Michael Nyman, Kate St. John and Steve Beresford.

[6] In December 1972 Eno had joined his Portsmouth Sinfonia colleagues at the Queen Elizabeth Hall for a guest appearance at Bryars' show which featured the world premier of The Raising of the Titanic (sic).

[7] Eno said of Bryars' work that, "It was really because I felt so strongly about The Sinking of the Titanic and Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet that I persisted with my idea to have a record label on which to get them released".

[8] The work was radically reworked from the earlier piece and included fragments of interviews with survivors, Morse code signal played on woodblocks and the sound of the iceberg as it collided with the ship amongst other new sources.