Tuesday, October 22 Titanic bandmaster’s violin is sold for record $1.6 million at auction タイタニック号楽団長のバイオリン、１億６６６０万円で落札 LONDON – A violin that is believed to have been played on the Titanic before the doomed vessel sank was auctioned for more than £1 million ($1.6 million) Saturday, a fantastic figure that one collector said may never be beaten. The sea-corroded instrument, now unplayable, is thought to have belonged to bandmaster Wallace Hartley, who was among the disaster’s more than 1,500 victims. The story of Hartley’s band, which stoically continued playing on the ship’s deck until the disaster’s final hour, is a memorable part of James Cameron’s “Titanic,” when Hartley and his colleagues are seen playing “Nearer, My God, To Thee”(賛美歌「主よ御許（みもと）に近づかん」) as the passengers around them scream and drown in the icy water. The violin, with Hartley’s name on it, is believed to have been found at sea with the musician’s body more than a week after the Titanic sank. “Mr. Hartley and the band were very brave people . . . standing by their posts to the bitter end (最後の最後まで自分たちの任務を果たした),” auctioneer Andrew Aldridge said ahead of the sale. Henry Aldridge and Son said the violin has been subject to numerous tests to check its authenticity since it was discovered in 2006. It said earlier this year that the violin was Hartley’s “beyond reasonable doubt.” The violin, of German make, was a gift from Hartley’s fiancee, Maria Robinson, and was engraved with the words, “For Wallace on the occasion of our engagement from Maria.”
Posted on: Wed, 23 Oct 2013 01:13:10 +0000
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