One hundred years ago this day, April 10, 1912, just before noon, Titanic set sail from Southampton and failed to arrive in New York as planned. Today Shift looks at one Canadian dream that forever changed course on that day, and plays music that, like Titanic's itinerary, was left incomplete.
Big plans for a small place
Charles Melville Hays dreamed big. At 39 he was named General Manager of the Grand Trunk Railway of Montreal, a somewhat disorganized collection of branch lines. Within ten years that same railway was on schedule to become our first truly coast-to-coast rail line, 3,600 miles in all. The man on our $5 bill, Sir Wilfred Laurier, called Hays "Beyond question the greatest railroad genius in Canada."
The key to truly capitalizing on this glittering new route was the tiny native village at what was to become its western terminus: Prince Rupert, B.C. Hays saw Prince Rupert as a bustling port of 50,000 - both closer to Asian shipping destinations and a more direct route to Eastern Canada than its rival to the south, Vancouver.
Boomtown-in-waiting
In the five years that Hays promoted his plan, Prince Rupert went from a total popultion of 150 to well over 1,000. Land jumped in value to $6,000 per lot. A fire department was set up and a motorized firetruck purchased - so futuristic a wonder that it was displayed in Toronto before being delivered. Hays even commissioned B.C.'s most respected (and most scandalous) architect, Francis Rattenbury, to design a grand hotel and train station to welcome the wealthy clamouring masses.
In the Spring of 1912 Charles Melville Hays went to England with his family to raise capital for his railroad, and to secure an arrangement with the White Star Line that would have passengers whisked across the Atlantic to board his trains and stay in his hotels. One of those hotels, the Chateau Laurier, was due to open at the end of April. To make sure he arrived on time, he came home onboard the newest, fastest ship available: Titanic.
Body no. 307
Charles Melville Hays was found by the ship Minia on April 26, body number 307. He was 56 years old. His body was taken to Montreal on his private railway car, and lies in Mount Royal Cemetery, as do his dreams for Prince Rupert, B.C. Vancouver's position as Canada's main west coast port remains secure, for the moment.
Unfinished business
To mark this, and all of the other stories, lives, projects, dreams and hopes that were left incomplete by Titanic's sinking, 100 years ago this week, Shift is offering music that was left incomplete by its creators. Our playlist includes music by Schubert, Bartok, Haydn, Ray Charles and these other famous unfinished pieces:
Haydn: String Quartet no. 68, Opus 103.
At 71 and in failing health, Haydn aceepted a commission for a set of 6 quartets, but wrote only the middle movements of the first quartet, and, facing the truth of his condition, had them published as his musical farewell.
Otis Redding: Dock of the Bay
Otis Redding recorded final overdubs on his best-known song with guitarist and co-writer Steve Cropper on December 8, 1967. Redding was still missing a final verse, so he whistled the last verse, hoping to add words in a later session. Two days later he boarded a plane from Cleveland, bound for Madison, Wisconsin in bad weather. He never arrived. When he polished up the unfinished recording, Cropper asked Redding's former bandleader Sam Taylor to re-do the whistling. It became both Taylor and Redding's signature song.
JS Bach: Art of the Fugue, Contrapunctus XIV
Bach's great exploration of what could be done with a single melody, the Art of The Fugue, was destined to be incomplete. It occupied the last ten years of his life, and he almost certainly would have continued it until he ran out of ideas, or died, the former being unimaginable. His son, CPE Bach, found it among his papers and published it posthumously, including the incomplete final installment, Contrapunctus XIV, which eerily stops mid-thought. CPE's hand-writing is on the manuscript, explaining that at the point where the composer added his own name in musical form, he died.
What other unfinished masterworks have we missed? What else might have been finished if things had been different? The souls of Bach, Otis Redding, Haydn, Charles Melville Hays and thousands more are counting on you: what else have we left undone? Let us know in the comment section.
