
Breaking Elgar’s Enigma - mhb
https://newrepublic.com/article/139816/breaking-elgars-enigma
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breadbox
While the article is strongly sympathetic to Padgett's answer, various hints
seep through that Padgett is actually a bit of a crackpot, and his solution is
a bit of a Bible Code. Nothing too obvious, but the sort of thing one
recognizes from reading about other crankery. And then, two-thirds of way into
the article:

> Most Elgar scholars I contacted said they have stopped responding to
> Padgett’s persistent inquiries.

Sigh. This sentence should have been in the lede.

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Isamu
Yes, at that point they revealed some of the classic symptoms of a crank:

> One professor at the University of London, who asked for anonymity so
> Padgett wouldn’t follow up, called Padgett’s theory an “attempt to create a
> reality effect through the excessive presentation of material which the
> reader is meant to assume is somehow evidence.”

Cranks are fascinating in that, while they have boundless time and energy to
produce voluminous work on a subject, they can't quite be bothered to educate
themselves about what does or does not constitute a logical argument, or about
little details like the fundamentals of mathematics or physics.

> He also contends that English scholars are too protective of their prized
> composer to consider the theory of a layperson such as him. “I’m an
> outsider, you know. I’m not one of these credentialed academics. I’m not
> published,” he said. “Who am I to presume that I could fathom the dark
> secrets of one of their foremost composers?”

Another hallmark, the crank feels mistreated strictly because they are an
outsider and questioning the insiders.

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lostconfused
This is actually a rather good article. It covers the subject in some detail
varying points of view. Enjoyable read.

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tgamba
Listening to Padgett's rendering of his Enigma theme on Youtube, it's not
especially musical. Author of the article seems duly impressed, but it's very
easy to write harmony to any given passage if you know the rules.

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jorjordandan
Good piece, other than the Grammarly product placement that stood out like a
sore thumb

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ggg9990
I don't think it's paid product placement.

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kencausey
Some might be interested in Nick Pelling's thoughts:

[http://ciphermysteries.com/?s=elgar](http://ciphermysteries.com/?s=elgar)

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Zarathust
So it seems that even music has its own kind of numerologists

