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