Edward Elgar

The name of Edward Elgar is not one that immediately springs to mind at the mention of microtonal music, but he merits a place here for a remark he made in a 1914 presidential speech to the Union of Graduates in Music. Displaying the complex blend of conservatism and progressivism which was such a feature of his musical character, he rails against the 'monkey tricks' of recent compositional trends, then adds:

'The more subtle refinement is not yet with us and can only come by the use of a scale more minutely divided than our own; this would educate the ear to something finer than we have yet heard'.

(Source: 'Edward Elgar - A Creative Life' by Jerrold Northrop Moore, OUP 1987, ISBN 0-19-284014-2, page 663.)