A historic Georgian frigate moored in Dundee since 1873 has won a major commission from the Imperial War Museum and will use the award to celebrate its 200th anniversary with an original piece of music – to be performed on the same brass instruments the ship’s band used in the First World War.
HMS Unicorn, which for much of its working life was used to train naval reservists, is the third oldest vessel still afloat and the only which is almost entirely original. Today it is revealed as the latest recipient of a £20,000 commission from the Imperial War Museum’s 14-18 NOW Legacy Fund, founded to invest the £2.5 million in royalties earned from Lord Of The Rings director Peter Jackson’s critically acclaimed First World War film, They Shall Now Grow Old.
Professional brass musicians will perform the as-yet-untitled work, which has been commissioned from Manchester-based composer Michael Betteridge. There will also be a larger piece for a local group of players, and the works will premiere next March as part of a year-long series of events.
HMS Unicorn was built as a 46-gun Leda class frigate at Chatham Royal Dockyard, where she was launched on March 30, 1824. Cutting edge in her day, she was never required for active service and by 1873 was being used as a powder hulk at Woolwich Arsenal. At the same time Dundee had a large and growing Royal Navy Volunteer Reserves (RNVR) group which had outgrown its training. A request was made to the Admiralty for a new one, and they were sent HMS Unicorn. The vessel was towed to Dundee by a paddle steamer and continued her work as a training ship there until 1968.
“The story that we’re drilling down into with this project is that HMS Unicorn had a regimental band on board that the trainees who could play instruments were part of. When they were sent off as infantry during the First World War, some of the musicians from that band were absorbed into the HMS Hood regimental band.”
Many of those HMS Unicorn reservists were subsequently killed in action on the Western Front, while others served and died in the Balkans and at Gallipoli. Among the century old instruments being employed in the new project are some thought lost following the battalion’s hasty retreat from the Siege of Antwerp in 1914.
“Their instruments were left behind in a basement while they fled and then some years later they were sent back to Unicorn, where we still have them. Part of this project is to use those instruments in the commission.”
A pressing problem ahead of the project is the current condition of those instruments. Until four years ago, one of them was used to play the Last Post at HMS Unicorn’s annual Remembrance Day service. The others haven’t been played for decades and it isn’t even clear what key they are in.
“They are very, very battered and dented,” said Mr Moran. “They have, shall we say euphemistically, an interesting patina to them. But structurally they’re fairly sound … they are viable. The repairs that they need are simple.”
The collection includes three or four trumpets, a tuba, a euphonium and a trombone. If the budget allows, the hope is that up to five instruments may be returned to use. They will be joined in the composition by modern brass instruments.
Mr Betteridge has previously worked with the Manchester Jewish Museum and in 2015 undertook a commission for the Salisbury International Festival called Market Songs. It explored the history of the town’s 700-year-old market through a massive choral installation.
“A lot of my work digs into collections and archives and stories and histories, and I was just fascinated by the challenge of what you can do with these historical instruments that have so many stories attached to them,” he said. “I’m really keen to understand the ship’s relationship with the city today, and what that means and how I can build that into the piece. But what I’m really keen to do is make sure that we’re capturing a range of experiences … It has to be a work that illuminates this fantastic ship and celebrates the communities in Dundee as well.”
There will be a performance of the resulting piece on the as well as elsewhere in Dundee. The performance will be filmed, with the footage made available online and presented as a display on board HMS Unicorn. A separate strand of the project will see aspects of it taken into local schools.
Mr Moran added: “We’re planning to do a couple of performances around the city, to make sure that as many people can attend as possible. We don’t want a formal sit-down concert in a concert hall. That would be nice as an addition, but the priority will be going out to places where it can be performed to people who wouldn’t have come along otherwise.”
Other projects planned for HMS Unicorn’s bicentenary year include a monograph on its history, and the planting out of oak tree saplings in a Unicorn Forest, the idea being to provide a sustainable source of wood for the ongoing repairs the vessel requires.
Now in its second year of commissions, the 14-18 NOW Legacy Fund has previously funded art projects across the UK including at The Hunterian gallery and museum in Glasgow.
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