The Times Great Lives

The invitation to write for the Leeds Festival (this was the last festival conducted by Sullivan) was in Elgar’s case, as in that of several other English composers, the sign that he had ‘arrived’. A still more decisive landmark in his career was the production by Richter of the ‘Enigma’ Variations for orchestra in London in the following year, and it is indeed difficult to understand how, amid these signal proofs of his qualities, The Dream of Gerontius could have missed fire as it did at Birmingham in 1900. No doubt its very originality stood in its way. Choral singers accustomed to solid oratorio choruses could not understand these paeans of angels and frenzied outcries of demons. It was held to be extremely difficult. Common opinion declared that while it had beautiful moments it was a failure as a whole. That opinion has now been reversed. Every one realizes that The Dream of Gerontius has some perilously weak moments, but that as a whole it is one of the great imaginative creations of musical art.

The failure at Birmingham, however, was a step towards Elgar’s recognition outside his own country. A. J. Jaeger, an early enthusiast for Elgar’s music, and at that time reader to Messrs. Novello and Co., was instrumental in getting Gerontius accepted for performance at the Lower Rhine Festival at Düsseldorf, where it was most enthusiastically acclaimed. The approval of a keenly critical German public led to its revival at Worcester in 1902, with the result that everyone knows. Birmingham made amends by producing the two companion oratorios, The Apostles and The Kingdom, at its two subsequent festivals (1903 and 1906); the London Choral Society was formed to give the first public performance of The Dream of Gerontius in London (1903), and a special festival consisting entirely of Elgar’s music was arranged at Covent Garden in 1904. In the following year he paid his first visit to the United States, where his works were received with enthusiasm.

The Symphonies: Public Acclaim

With these triumphs the first period of Elgar’s success as a composer of choral and orchestral works on the largest scale was completed. A second and equally brilliant instrumental period was to begin with the production of the first symphony in 1908. The Variations and several concert overtures, notably the popular ‘Cockaigne’ and ‘In the South’, together with the beautiful ‘Introduction and Allegro’ for strings, had contributed to the assurance that Elgar would reach his most individual expression in some work of the symphonic type; but he was even slower than Brahms in committing himself to a symphony. When the first symphony in A flat was announced for a concert of the Hallé Orchestra under Richter at Manchester excitement ran high. The broad melody with which it opens, the restless surge of its first allegro, the delicate merging of the scherzo into the slow movement and the triumphant progress of the finale to an apotheosis of the opening theme, would have carried away an audience less thrilled with expectancy than was that which crowded the Free Trade Hall on December 3, 1908.

Never has a symphony become so instantly ‘the rage’ with the ordinary British public as did this. For some time the regular orchestras of London could not play it often enough, special concerts were arranged for it, enterprising commercialists even engaged orchestras to play it in their lounges and palm courts as an attraction to their winter sales of underwear. The ‘boom’ was as absurd as such things usually are, and as short-lived, but it was based on something real. Here at last the public had found a composer whom experts acknowledged to be a master and whom they could understand. Elgar had caught the ear of the public for big music, apart from words or voice or drama.

That the violin concerto produced by Kreisler in 1910 should have been received in the same spirit is less remarkable, for the solo work has all the advantage of personal virtuosity which the symphony lacks. Both it and the second symphony in E flat, dedicated to the memory of King Edward vii, were felt by musicians to be of a finer fibre than the first, but the quiet, reflective ending of the second symphony was in itself sufficient to prevent the work being sought for as the first had been. The majestic funeral march of this symphony and the lofty but restrained dignity of the finale make it rank very high, however, in the estimation of musicians.

The War and After

It is not surprising that a period of comparative unproductiveness should have followed on these years. The Music Makers, a short choral work of a sentimental cast, in which themes from all Elgar’s chief works were freely quoted, rather emphasized his decline in energy. One further orchestral work, the symphonic poem ‘Falstaff’, however, showed that his invention was by no means exhausted. The War came, and various pièces d’occasion, sincerely felt and fervently expressed, occupied him. Such were the music to Cammaerts’s poem ‘Carillon’ and three commemorative odes (Laurence Binyon), of which ‘For the Fallen’ was the most impressive. He turned also to the composition of chamber music, and brought out together several works of that class, a violin sonata of rather unequal texture, a delicate string quartet, and a fine quintet for piano and strings. With these came in 1919 the concerto for violoncello, which though scored for a normally full orchestra has more in common with the intimate mood of the chamber works than with that of his big orchestral period.

In the spring of 1920 the death of Lady Elgar broke the composer’s life. For some time he lived very much in retirement; but among the few occasions on which he was willing to make a public appearance were always the Three Choirs Festivals of his native West Country. But for him those festivals might not have been restored after the War, and certainly could never have enjoyed the prosperity of the last decade without the attraction of Elgar’s music given under his own direction. In 1924 the King appointed him to the traditional office, without specific duties, of Master of the King’s Musick.

There was presently some talk of his finishing the trilogy of oratorios begun with The Apostles, possibly for a Gloucester festival, but that scheme did not mature. A few minor compositions, however, were thrown off, and in the summer of 1932 Elgar mentioned casually in conversation the existence in his desk of a Third Symphony. He was persuaded to promise it to the bbc Orchestra, and it was announced for production this year. The Third Symphony, however, was not in his desk, but in his head, when he spoke of it, and, like many a great composer before him, he spoke of it as ‘practically written’ when he had made only a few sketches. Though Elgar made considerable progress with it after the offer of the bbc was accepted, ill-health last year prevented him from bringing it into a condition from which it could be finished by anyone else. During his last illness he spoke of his anxiety lest an attempt should be made by another hand to finish his work. His wishes in regard to the fragments must be respected. There is not a single movement which is near completion, though some passages have been fully scored.

Elgar was a man of many interests outside music, and as years increased they tended to absorb more of his time and attention. He loved travel, experimental chemistry, heraldry, literature, and the racecourse. Sometimes he seemed to take a whimsical pleasure in persuading himself (though he could never persuade others) that these were the serious preoccupations of his life and that the writing of symphonies was only a frivolous hobby. He was fond of saying that he knew very little about music, was not particularly interested in the performances of his works, and never read what the papers said of them. This sometimes seemed an affectation, but was really an armour of defence. He suffered much from the adulation of indiscriminate admirers and often yearned to get out of the limelight at the very moment when he deliberately walked into it. He was like his music, essentially simple and spontaneous, though the simplicity might be occasionally clouded, by decorative details. Indeed it was his power of expressing himself in his music which made so extraordinarily direct an appeal. Through all the diversity of the subjects he treated the same mind speaks. A tune of two bars or a progression of two chords is enough to reveal him. It is impossible to imagine him writing like anyone else or even purposely maintaining a disguise through a page of score.

Many Honours

Elgar received many honours both at home and abroad. He was knighted in 1904 by King Edward, and on the occasion of King George’s coronation the Order of Merit was conferred on him, a distinction never previously bestowed on a musician. In 1928 he was made kcvo, in 1931 he was created a baronet, and he was promoted to gcvo last year. The University of Cambridge led the way in the many offers of academic distinctions, honoris causa. It was at the instance of Stanford that Elgar became a Doctor of Music of Cambridge on November 22, 1900. Academic institutions of France, Italy, Belgium, Holland, Sweden, and the United States of America have paid him their several tributes. But the greatest tribute is the extent to which his music has travelled to foreign countries and has been performed by artists of the first rank. While there have been plenty of critics able to discover that his music is not a thousand things which the ideal symphony or the ideal oratorio ought to be, Elgar has been everywhere appreciated as one of the most individual composers of modern times, and distinguished from many of his contemporaries in the fact that music for him was always first and foremost beautiful sound.

Sir Edward Elgar leaves an only daughter, Carice Irene, who was married to Mr S. H. Blake in 1922.

Marie Curie

The discoverer of radium

4 July 1934

Mme Curie, whose death we announce with regret on another page, had a worldwide reputation as the most distinguished woman investigator of our times. Her claim to fame rests primarily on her researches in connection with the radioactive bodies and particularly for her discovery and separation of the new element rad-ium, which showed radiating properties to a marked degree. This was a discovery of the first importance, for it provided scientific men with a powerful source of radiation which has been instrumental in extending widely our knowledge not only of radioactivity but of the structure of atoms in general. Radium has also found an extensive application in hospitals for therapeutic purposes, and particularly for the treatment of cancerous growths by the action of the penetrating radiation emitted spontaneously from this element.

Marie Sklodowska, as she was before her marriage, was born on November 7, 1867, at Warsaw, and received her education there. She early showed a deep interest in science, and went to Paris to attend lectures in the Sorbonne. She had small financial resources, and had to teach in schools to earn sufficient money to pay her expenses. In 1895 she married Pierre Curie, a young scientist of great promise, who had already made several notable discoveries in magnetism and in the physics of crystals. Mme Curie continued her scientific work in collaboration with her husband, but the direction of their work was changed as the result of the famous discovery of Henri Becquerel in 1896, who found that the element uranium showed the surprising property of emitting penetrating types of radiation, which blackened a photographic plate and discharged an electrified body.

Examination of Pitchblende

Mme Curie made further investigations of this remarkable property using the electric method as a method of analysis. She showed that the radioactivity of uranium was an atomic property, as it depended only on the amount of uranium present and was unaffected by the combination of uranium with other elements. She also observed the striking fact that the uranium minerals from which uranium was separated showed an activity four to five times the amount to be expected from the uranium present. She correctly concluded that there must be present in uranium minerals another substance or substances far more active than uranium. With great boldness she undertook the laborious work of the chemical examination of the radioactive mineral pitchblende, and discovered a new strongly active substance which she named polonium, after the country of her birth. Later she discovered another new element, allied in chemical properties to barium, which she happily named radium. This element is present in minerals only in about one part in 3,000,000 compared with uranium, and shows radioactive properties more than a million times that of an equal weight of uranium. The Austrian Government presented Mme Curie with the radioactive residues necessary for the separation of radium in quantity, and she was in this way able to obtain sufficient material to determine the atomic weight and physical and chemical properties of the new element.

The importance of this discovery was at once recognized by the scientific world. In 1903 the Davy Medal of the Royal Society was awarded jointly to Professor and Mme Curie, while in 1904 they shared a Nobel Prize with Henri Becquerel. After the death of Pierre Curie in a street accident in Paris in 1906 Mme Curie was awarded in 1911 the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery and isolation of the element radium. In 1906 she was appointed to a special Chair in the Sorbonne and was the first woman to obtain this distinction. Later a special Radium Institute, called the Pierre Curie Institute, was founded for investigations in radioactivity, and Mme Curie became the first director. She held this post at the time of her death.

Classes at the Sorbonne

In the course of the last 20 years this institute has been an important centre of research, where students of many nationalities have carried out investigations under her supervision. Mme Curie was a clear and inspiring lecturer, and her classes at the Sorbonne were widely attended. Her scientific work was all of a high order. She was a careful and accurate experimenter, and showed marked power of critical judgment in interpreting scientific facts. She retained an enthusiastic interest in her science throughout her life, and was a regular attendant at international conferences, taking an active and valuable part in scientific discussions.

She had a deep interest in the application of radium for therapeutic work both in France and abroad, and during the War actively helped in this work. She was twice invited to visit the United States and was received with acclamation, while the women of that country presented her with a gram of radium, to allow her to extend her researches. In 1922 she was appointed a member of the International Committee for Intellectual Cooperation of the League of Nations and took an active part in their deliberations.

Mme Curie left two children. The elder, Irene, early showed marked scientific ability and married a co-worker in the Radium Institute, M. Joliot. It was a source of great satisfaction and pride to Mme Curie in her later years to follow the splendid researches made by her daughter and her husband, for they have made notable contributions to our knowledge of neutrons and transformations. During the present year, they observed that a number of elements became radioactive by bombardment with the particles from radium, and have thus opened up a new method for study of the transformation of the atoms of matter.

The many friends of Mme Curie of all nations, and the scientific world as a whole, will greatly lament the removal of one who was held in such great honour for her splendid discoveries in science, and one who by strength of character and personality left a deep impression on all those who met her.

Sigmund Freud

Psycho-analysis

23 September 1939

Professor Sigmund Freud, md, originator of the science of psycho-analysis, died at his son’s London home at Hampstead on Saturday night at the age of 83. From 1902 until recently he was Professor of Neurology in the University of Vienna. When the Germans violated Austria last year he was compelled to fly to England, where he had lived ever since.

Freud was one of the most challenging figures in modern medicine. Indeed, though his work was primarily medical, there is something incongruous in speaking of him as a doctor. Rather he was a philosopher, using the methods of science to achieve therapeutic ends. Philosophy, science, and medicine all paid him the tributes of excessive admiration and excessive hostility.

The truth would seem to be that even at this late date the time has not yet arrived when a just estimate of psycho-analysis and its founder is possible. The atmosphere is too highly charged with controversy. Supporters and opponents are still in too bitter a mood. One can neither affirm that Freud’s teaching will stand the test of time, nor deny that it may change permanently the whole conception of the operations of the human mind. Psycho-analysis, whatever it may have become in alien hands, possesses at least the merit of having been given to the world as a treatment of disease and not as a moral law. Freud, indeed, though he took great liberties with philosophy, though he was himself a philosopher malgré lui, always wrote and spoke as a man of science. He did not pretend to have invented his remarkable view of mental processes: he asserted that he had discovered it.

But Freud, the man, was clearly bigger than his detractors are usually ready to admit. His influence has pervaded the world within the space of but a few years. It can be discerned today in almost every branch of human thought, and notably in education, and some of his terms have become part of everyday language, ‘the inferiority complex’ for example.

Misunderstanding dogged Freud’s steps from the beginning. He spoke of sex in that large sense which includes the love of parents for their children, the love of children for their parents, the labours of a man to provide for his family, the tenderness of a grown man towards his mother, and so on: and immediately his intention was narrowed by his critics to their own partial view. They accused him of attempting to undermine the moral law. Again, he indicated his belief that natural impulses which have been suppressed have not, by that act, been annihilated. They remain in what he called the ‘unconscious mind’ to vex and trouble their possessors. At once the cry was raised that this man preached a doctrine of unbridled libertinism. Those raising it overlooked the fact that Freud had placed side by side with his doctrine of repression his doctrine of ‘sublimation’. We must not, he taught, regard a natural impulse as, of itself, wrong or unworthy. To do so is to abhor the law of Nature and so the order of the universe. Rather we must take that impulse and apply it to the noblest purposes of which we are capable.

This, it may be admitted, was a little like saying that a negative produces a positive, and that man owes his spiritual development to racial and social taboos. It was a doctrine which appealed strongly to Puritanical minds, with the result that Freud’s supporters, like his opponents, included persons of the most diverse views. Psycho-analysis thus became not one but a dozen battle-grounds on which the combatants fought with the fierceness of zealots. There is indeed, in all Freud’s writing, a haunting echo of theological controversy. His conception included, under other names, many ancient doctrines and dogmas. Thus there is but little real distinction between ‘original sin’ and the ‘natural impulse’ of the Viennese professor. Freud, too, adjured his patients to recognize their human nature as the necessary first step to cure; not merely the knowledge but the conviction of sin was essential to a change of heart. Again, he bade his followers know themselves by every means and devised astonishing new methods of self-knowledge or ‘self-analysis’. Thus was the evil spirit of a suppressed emotion or desire unmasked and released to be transmuted into the good spirit serving as a mainspring of action.

The famous theory of dreams and the various ‘complexes’ resolve themselves, when viewed as Freud meant them to be viewed, into observations of the activities of the ‘natural man’ imprisoned and ignored yet always alive within us. This original sin, if denied, possesses, he believed, the power to ‘attach’ itself to or ‘associate’ itself with other, apparently good and innocent thoughts, lending them, thereby, its own passionate energy. Hence the innumerable ‘anxieties’ and fears (‘phobias’) of the mentally sick: hence their strange apings of physical disease, their perverted ideas, their unreasoning prejudices. To resurrect this natural man and yoke his powers to fresh and useful enterprises was the life-aim of the physician.

There are those, today, who deny the very existence of the ‘unconscious mind’ – though their numbers are diminishing. There are others who see in nervous ailments only the failure of will power, whereby they think we hold our instincts in wholesome restraint. Finally, there are many who believe that an actual physical lesion, a disease of the body, underlies every abnormality of the mind. Freud’s doctrine is anathema to all such. His doctrine, moreover, has been modified and changed, notably by Jung, who laid far less stress than Freud on the sexual character of emotional impulse. The controversy is apt to become a barren one.

Freud was born at Freiberg, in Moravia, on May 6, 1856, and studied in Vienna and at the Salpêtrière in Paris, graduating md in 1881. Most of his numerous works have been translated into English and other languages, and he was editor of Internationale zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse and of Imago, and director of the International Journal of Psycho-Analysis. Last year he was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society, and many years ago he received the honorary degree of ll.d from Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts. Professor Freud married in 1886, and had three sons and three daughters.

Amy Johnson

A great airwoman

6 January 1941

Miss Amy Johnson, cbe, whose death is now confirmed, will always be remembered as the first woman to fly alone from England to Australia. That flight took place in 1930 and her name at once became world-famous.

In the early days of the war she was employed in ‘ferrying’ material to France for the raf. Her cool courage, flying unarmed through the danger zone, was much admired by the raf pilots. Since that time she had flown a variety of aircraft many thousands of miles and she met her death while serving her country.

Amy Johnson was of Danish origin. Her grandfather, Anders Jörgensen, shipped to Hull when he was 16, settled there, changed his name to Johnson, and married a Yorkshire woman named Mary Holmes. One of their sons, the father of Amy, became a successful owner of Hull trawlers. Amy graduated ba at Sheffield University, and then went to London to learn to fly at the London Flying Club at Stag Lane, Edgware. After taking her ‘A’ licence she passed the Air Ministry examination to qualify as a ground engineer. Before starting on her flight to Australia her only considerable experience of cross-country flying was one flight from London to Hull.

Having acquired a secondhand Moth with Gipsy engine, she started from Croydon on May 5, 1930, on an attempt to beat the light aeroplane record of 15½ days from England to Australia. Considering her lack of experience at that time as a navigator, it was a marvel that she found her way so well. She arrived safely at Darwin on May 24. Thence she flew to Brisbane, where, probably through her exhausted condition, she overshot the aerodrome and crashed her Moth rather badly. Australian National Airways Limited arranged for her to fly as a passenger in one of their machines to Sydney, and in the pilot of that machine she met her future husband, Mr J. A. Mollison. She was accorded a great reception in Australia, and was received at Government House. King George V conferred on her the cbe and the Daily Mail made her a present of £10,000. On her return to England she was met at Croydon by the Secretary of State for Air, the late Lord Thomson, in person.