Elgar?! I barely... nah, it doesn't work.

It doesn't make sense with Percy Grainger either, but still just rolls as smoothly as any one of those jokes. Anyway, we have had a very healthy dose of Elgar this week, and it was all new to me. Elgar has always been one of those composers who wrote some good music, but I never thought I would learn any of his biography. He was indeed a character by today's standards. I hope they noticed back then. On the outside he was a gruff-looking military type. He was very manly with an enormous stache that looked like it could subjugate the British colonies on its own. From the old photos, he looks like a straight-arrowing, former boy-scouting, muscular-christianing man with healthy self-esteem and all his scruples in tact. The reality, however, was that he was a mopey self-doubter who surrounded himself with consolers and made arrangements with his wife (who's earnings he lived off of for a quite a time) to have permissible extramarital affairs. I don't think I'm revealing too much or surprising anyone at this point when I say, I don't like his type. Part of me wishes I didn't know these things about him. It seems like no composer ever makes it into the history books with his hands clean. As a composer, it worries me that I may not have (or lack) what it takes to make true art, or I could be corrupted by the future or misrepresented by history. What was interesting to learn, still, were the conditions, environments, and times in which he composed his most famous works. It was helpful to see what was done for the money, what was done because he missed the country, and how accurately we imagine the setting of these pieces today.