In July 1897, Elgar sent a coded letter to Dora Penny who in 1899 was immortalized as the “variationee” for Variation X with the nickname Dorabella. One attempted solution is “Gets you to joy, and hysterious.” The word ‘hysterious’ is a portmanteau based on the words hysteria, mysterious, and tear. Elgar expressed his opinion of the performance by writing a message in cipher on his program. In April 1886 he attended a performance at the Crystal Palace conducted by August Manns in honor of Franz Liszt who was present for the occasion. Since he wrote the Enigma Theme, this identification should be self-evident.Įlgar’s keen interest in ciphers is well known, well established, and well beyond any reasonable doubt. In his correspondence, he used this name as well as the opening bars of the Enigma Theme to represent himself. He later devised the palindrome Siromoris to serve as his telegraphic address, a name based on his two honors – a knighthood (Sir) and the Order of Merit (OM). is the initials for his wife in the Enigma Variations, a work completed a month prior to relocating to Craeg Lea. In March 1899 he called his new home Craeg Lea, a title created by reversing the letters of his last name (C ra e g Le a) and adding the first letters of the first names of his daughter, wife, and himself ( C arice, A lice, E dward). For example, the name he gave his only child – Carice – was a combination of his wife’s first and middle names ( Ca r oline Al ice ). Craig Bauer devotes an entire chapter to Elgar in his recently released history of cryptography titled Unsolved! Elgar's musical scores and letters are peppered with anagrams and secret codes. What is known with great confidence is that Elgar held a lifelong fascination for a wide range of puzzles such as anagrams, crossword puzzles, riddles, and ciphers. No wonder Elgar was suspicious of career academics, balked when invited to join their ranks, and abandoned his lectures after enduring their scathing, cliquish criticisms. If they cannot figure it out, they reason (rather unreasonably) that nobody else can either. Since they are incapable of unmasking the solution, they categorically deny that possibility for everyone else. Put another way, some scholars do not know what they do not know, elevating their ignorance to a form of pseudo-knowledge. For academics to speak in such absolutes is contrary to their fashionable embrace of relativism, a dogma espoused with a degree of certainty only eclipsed perhaps by their fanaticism for it. For better or worse, we reside in a universe predicated on faith. The only thing we know with absolute certainty is that we can be absolutely certain of nothing. Centuries after Pascal arrived at these pivotal insights, Kurt Gödel conceived of a famous mathematical proof that affirms Pascal’s observations. Just how do these scholars know the solution is unknowable? The brilliant Christian mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal argues humanity is incapable of certain knowledge and absolute ignorance, that too much and too little learning are extremes that escape us.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |