1. Her Maiden voyage

The fog horn sounds as the Titanic departs Queenstown, Ireland on her first trans-Atlantic crossing to New York. The first movement captures the majesty of the great ship crossing the Atlantic. It's in the traditional sonata allegro form of a symphony. Towards the end of the first movement, a passenger wandering on the promenade deck hears a faint grinding, which was the sound of the ship scraping against a large iceberg. Most of the passengers didn't even notice this. However, they did notice the sound of the great steam engines slowing down and coming to a halt. Then, the engines started up again, but final orders were given to stop the engines for the last time. The movement ends with the Titanic sitting motionless in the water. 

This audio is a short segment of the first movement. 

On her slanted decks, husbands were bidding wives and families farewell, as lifeboats were being lowered into the icy water. Isador Straus, owner of Macy's department store, assisted his wife Ida as she made to lifeboat number eight. She refused to get in, saying, "We've been living together for many years. Where you go, I go." They pulled up deck chairs and sat together side by side in tight embrace, ready to meet death as they had lived their lives: together.

The story of Ida and Isador Straus is one of the most poignant of the Titanic's many tragic stories. Woven into the theme is a sense of the Straus' background, the ragtime optimism of an America which held great promise and success for an emigrant like Straus; though what we hear is a melancholy strain, like something lost, in the final plunge of what was thought to be "unsinkable." For all the sadness of the piece, there is a feeling of warmth for the love between two persons so wedded in life that even death could not part them. 

- notes by Mike Caffey.

This is the entire third movement.