Elgar’s Explosion

Composer Edward Elgar had a chemistry lab in a shed in his yard. There’s an anecdote about this lab in Elgar’s biography by W.H. Reed, and it’s quoted verbatim in pretty much every other source about it. Because it’s only a second-hand anecdote in one biography, it’s hard to say whether it’s entirely true, so the only way to cite it is to quote it. I went for a different interpretation… (The full quote from Reed is below.)

The section from “Elgar as I knew him”, by W.H. Reed, that inspired this comic:

“One day he made a phosphoric concoction which, when dry, would “go off” by spontaneous combustion. The amusement was to smear it on a piece of blotting paper and then wait breathlessly for the catastrophe. One day he made too much paste; and, when his music called him and he wanted to go back to the house, he clapped the whole of it into a gallipot, covered it up, and dumped it into the water-butt, thinking it would be safe there.

Just as he was getting on famously, writing in horn and trumpet parts, and mapping out wood-wind, a sudden and unexpected crash, as of all the percussion in all the orchestras on earth, shook the room, followed by the “rushing mighty sound” he had already anticipated in The Kingdom. The water-butt had blown up: the hoops were rent: the staves flew in all directions; and the liberated water went down the drive in a solid wall.

Silence reigned for a few seconds. Then all the dogs in Herefordshire gave tongue; and all the doors and windows opened. After a moment’s thought, Edward lit his pipe and strolled down to the gate, andante tranquillo, as if nothing had happened and the ruined water-butt and the demolished flower-beds were pre-historic features of the landscape. A neighbour, peeping out of his gate, called out, “Did you hear that noise sir: it sounded like an explosion?” “Yes,” said Sir Edward, “I heard it: where was it?” The neighbour shook his head; and the incident was closed. “

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