Music at Sea

Enduring the queasy vertigo
of Mal de Mer is never pleasant.
And fretting over a lee shore
during a terrible storm
is most unwelcome. 

But in between these afflictions
there is one malady that follows
everyone on a sea voyage.

Boredom.

Day after day, week after week,
the tedious monotony of a 360° horizon
quickly dampens the spirit
of any traveler on board a ship.

Stroll around the deck a few dozen times;
exchange pleasantries once more with fellow voyagers;
peruse again the shabby books
and dated newspapers in the library; 

inspect the ship's menu for the nth time;
and contemplate the horizon
that never gets any closer.
The weary traveler soon yearns for a distraction,
a diversion, an amusement,
or anything that might be
a lifebuoy of rescue
for a mind adrift in an ocean of doldrums.

Yet all was not lost
on a ship manned with a few musicians.
Their siren song of music
could offer the perfect remedy
for this sickness of the long sea voyage.


Or maybe not.

These eight somber musicians were members of a ocean liner's orchestra. The ensemble had one flute, two clarinets, a single violin, cello, and double bass, and two players without instruments, perhaps on piano and percussion. All wear matching livery uniforms in a simple style. But with eight bristly upturned mustaches, it not hard to recognize them as musicians of the German Empire before 1918. 

They were photographed on a ship's deck outside a salon with decorative glass windows. The back of the postcard has a German stamp and postmark of 25/11/12 from Altona, Germany, a borough of Hamburg on the Elbe River.  However the photo was produced in the Republic of Argentina

It was addressed to Fritz Humert (?) of a city (unclear) in Bayern (Bavaria) from Wolfgang, dated 24.XI.12.  Fortunately Wolfgang, who might be one of the musicians, thoughtfully added an important clue to their location along the top edge. 

auf S.S. Cap Ortegal
~
on the Steam Ship Cap Ortegal

The Cap Ortegal was one of several passenger ships in the fleet of the Hamburg Südamerikanische Dampfschifffahrts-Gesellschaft. Established in 1871 from a conglomerate of merchant houses, the Hamburg Süd, provided passenger and mail transportation services from the ports of Hamburg, Germany and Genoa, Italy to Buenos Aires, Argentina with stops in England, France, Spain, and Portugal, and sometimes Brazil. By 1914 the Cap Ortegal was one of 50 ships in the Hamburg Südamerikanische fleet.

1910 Steamship Communication to South America:
Reports from Consular Officers of the United States
Source: Google Books

There were Hamburg Süd ships leaving roughly once every week for a one-way trip to Buenos Aires of 6,646 nautical miles or 7,648 miles. When it was commissioned in April 1904, the Cap Ortegal  at 7,818 tons was a modestly large passenger ship for its time. Its top speed was rated at 13.5 knots which allowed it to make the one-way trip from Europe to South America in roughly 21 to 26 days depending on ports of call, currents, and weather.

1910 Steamship Communication to South America:
Reports from Consular Officers of the United States
Source: Google Books

The Cap Ortegal was 134.4 meters (441 feet) in length and 16 meters (52.5 feet) in width. It offered accommodation to 164 passengers in first-class cabins, 94 in second-class, and 338 in third-class berths. The crew comprised 129 men, presumably counting every rank from first officer to coal stoker and the eight musicians in the orchestra. Power was supplied by two triple expansion steam machines developing 4200 hp to spin two propellers. It's interesting that in newspaper and magazine reports of the era of steamships, the description of ocean liners always included detailed specs on the engineering and machinery. Whether this was driven by an interest from the travel consumers or because of the fleet manufacturer's self-promotion is not clear, but it meant that the public always had ample information to compare ships. Reviewers wrote about vibration, steadiness, and speed with lengthy descriptions on the artful design of woodwork, upholstery, and social amenities. Of course this was aimed primarily at upper class travelers.





This next postcard shows the S.S. „Cap Ortegal“ in a colored profile illustration of the ship cruising through the ocean waves. From the message along the bottom border, it was sent on 14.1.06 — 14 January 1906, just a year and a half since its maiden voyage to Argentina. Looking like a seagull, a small X mark over the bridge may show where the writer's cabin is. Written in French along the top edge are the coordinates for where the ship was that day, Latitude North 25°26', Longitude West 17°35'. This places the Cap Ortegal 200 miles south of Tenerife in the Canary Islands off the west coast of North Africa.

The postcard was addressed to someone in Paris but it has a German stamp and three cancellations, one from Montevideo, Uruguay. That means the writer was on an outward bound voyage with the postcard being dropped off in Uruguay before the Cap Ortegal reached Buenos Aires. 

Passenger steamships like the Cap Ortegal could take on some smaller cargo, but they were  designed mainly for speed that would transport people and the mail as quickly and as efficiently as possible. Not surprisingly a postcard in this era served a more practical purpose as a cheap way to let the folks at home know that the traveler had arrived safely. Cards and letters written on board would be left at each port of call and picked up by the next ship returning to the home port.

The eight musicians of the Cap Ortegal's orchestra are likely German, but might be German-Argentinians too. Passenger liners did not spend more than a few days in a destination port before returning, so some of the crew and musicians may have made Buenos Aires their home.

The ship's "orchestra" was really just a chamber ensemble engaged to entertain the patrons. They likely had no maritime training, and probably were hired as seasonal or itinerant workers with no long term contract. Their performances were typically scheduled around meal times like many similar musical groups that played in German cafes or restaurants. On occasion they may have played for dances or for the folks in third-class. I don't know what kind of repertoire an ensemble like this would play. Undoubtedly they used arrangements adapted for this odd collection of instruments. Given the multinational clientele on board the ship, the concerts likely were not just German music but French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Brazilian, and Argentinian songs and dances. The better bands surely knew thousands of pieces by heart. But the worst groups would have played a small repetitive set of music that did little to relieve a traveler's affliction of boredom on the sea.

The next postcard image shows the interior of the Cap Ortegal's Speisesalon - Dining Salon. There are no people in the picture, just empty chairs and tables, but it displays an elegant style suitable for the first-class passengers. I imagine at one end there was a performing platform for the musicians with room for a small piano and drum set.

In this era before 1914-18 a globetrotting holiday was becoming a fashionable idea in the magazines, but few ordinary people could actually afford it. I don't think South America was then a major tourist destination, but it was definitely a place that had a lot to offer if you had an interest in commodities like coffee, grain, beef, timber, and cotton. Most of the travelers at sea on ships like the Cap Ortegal were traveling for business. The world of international trade needed salesmen, agents, managers, engineers, financiers, etc. to handle the business interests of import-export firms. And all these people traveled by ship moving along established sea lanes between the continents.

Businessmen needed to talk about the financial news of the day, so newspaper digests catering to each language were published for sea-going travelers. For English speakers it was The Brazilian Review printed in Rio de Janeiro. The weekly shipping reports listed all the ships arriving with their nationality and previous port of call, followed by a list of all the ships departing, giving the name of their ultimate destination. In 1909, the Cap Ortegal was one of 52 ships arriving in Rio during the week of August 7 - 13, and it did not even stay overnight, as it left the same day. Among the many small schooners and barques, are 30 steamships over 1,000 tons. The Cap Ortegal was one of the largest. If even half of those passenger liners were supplied with some kind of musical ensemble, then extrapolating for the entire Atlantic, that's a lot of music afloat.

The Brazilian Review
17 August 1909

Just a few pages before the shipping report, was some local news from Rio De Janeiro that caught my attention. The Director-General of Public Health had released a mortality list for Rio itemized by disease. as of August 8th, 1909:


Yellow Fever, 0; bubonic plague, 0; smallpox, 1; measles, 1; scarlet fever, 0; whooping cough, 0; diphtheria, 0; influenza, 7; typhoid fever, 1; dysentery, 2; beriberi, 0; leprosy, 0; erysipelas, 0; marsh fevers, 3; pulmonary diseases, 64.  Total deaths from all causes 250, equal to an annual rate of 20.46 per thousand inhabitants. Mortality of infectious diseases to total number of deaths, 32.40 per cent. Under treatment in hospitals: Yellow fever, 0; smallpox, 19; bubonic plague, 0; under observation, 10.  

The Brazilian Review
17 August 1909

Compared to our jet-set lives in the 21st century, the world of 1909 had many more things to worry about. The notion of quarantining a ship's passengers and crew was the standard method of preventing an outbreak of contagious disease for centuries. It usually worked, though not always to the benefit of those on board the ship. Now with the recent epidemic of deadly pulmonary illness in China, humans must learn new rules of life and death.


This next sepia tone postcard of the Cap Ortegal is a photo but has no postmark. It probably dates from around 1913-14.

The S.S. Cap Ortegal served the sea route from Hamburg to Buenos Aires from 1904 to 1914. At the outbreak of the great war, it took refuge in Tenerife in the Canary Islands, which being part of Spain, was a neutral port. It remained there until 1919 when it was handed over to France as part of the German war reparations. Renamed the Chambord, it was refitted with many more cheaper berths, likely for migrant Asian laborers, and in 1922 began passenger service to French Indochina, Madagascar, and French possessions in the Indian Ocean. It was retired and sold for scrap in 1932.

Imagine the number of times
people waved as the ship left the docks.
Gute Reise!
Buen viaje! 
Bon Voyage!

Can you hear the orchestra?

* * *

For a British contrast,
check out my story from May 2019:

The Ship's Orchestra

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday
where everyone's trying to rearrange the deck chairs.