Birkenhead is expressly designated as “Musical Themes” but does not follow a predetermined programme and simply is not intended to be descriptive. This case is analogous to the earlier “Concert for Prince Eugene”, in which the implications of the title manifest themselves in a dedication by referring to certain of the musician's cultural and musical preferences. Here in Birkenhead as well, he illustrates his particular frame of mind with respect to a certain “theme” of his own inspiration by attempting to express a state of feeling musically. Such a theme is a “Fact from an old chronicle”, a piece which can be recited by a speaker prior to the music.

An English ship, the Birkenhead, stranded on a cliff in Simon Bay in South Africa one night in February, 1853.

The soldiers of the Scottish Batallion, which was returning home, and the seamen on board were able to look death sternly and calmly in the eye and maintain the most perfect discipline as if they were standing inspection. Only the handful who had been ordered to save the women and children in the few boats reached land. The others numbering to roughly five hundred seamen and soldiers, remained in formation so as not to overload the lifeboats and silently resolved to go down with their ship to the sound of the drums and the fanfare of the trumpets.

Musical instrumentation of the piece - string instruments, 2 flutes with octave flute, 2 trumpets, kettledrums, celesta, percussion instruments, and the obligatory piano polarized in two blocks with string instruments and piano on one side and the wind instruments on the other, both of these blocks trying to portray the two contrasting elements, the storm at sea and the military fanfare, which according to the old chronicle comprised the musician’s emotional motivation and which thus have been transferred to a contrast in tones.