Yes, I agree with that entirely. Nevertheless, of the many images you could have chosen to illustrate this aspect of Elgar's music, you chose the one ('retired English colonel') which chimes with the stereotyped view of the composer startlingly, which suggests to me the endurance of this stereotype! 
I recommend James Hamilton-Paterson’s wonderfully entertaining
Gerontius, a fictional account of Elgar’s 1923 journey along the River Amazon.
In it he writes something very interesting about the popular image of Elgar.
“‘I can tell you - it’s like dining with a time- bomb,’ she said. ‘It’s up to you to guess when it’s due to go off.’
‘He
is a genius,’ said her friend emolliently.
‘A bloody rude one.’
.....’What I meant Kate dear, is that I recognised his
presence at once. He never said much at all during those rehearsals- he just sort of smouldered and now and again clapped a hand to his brow when someone did something silly. Actually I rather think he once turned his back in the lot of us when we missed an entry and various people had to trot up to pacify him and turn him around.
‘That part at least sounds like our passenger,’ Kate said.
‘But that isn’t the part I mean. When the actual performance was going well and we all had that feeling, you know? - as if nobody can put a foot wrong? - he was extraordinary. That little figure on the podium in the distance looked
apart in some way but at the same time we realised he was controlling the lot of us. We were all completely in his service and for as long as we could give ourselves up to his spirit or his musical vision or whatever it was the whole thing became absolutely
magnetic. By the end we all felt exalted, too. Personally I never slept a wink that night. And from then until the other day I never clapped eyes on him. Yet when we were introduced it was that odd quality which hit me at once and even after so long I remembered it. I can’t explain it better than that.’
‘I’ll allow he has a certain something about him,’ admitted Kate, ‘but in all honesty I do t know whether that isn’t just because I know who he is. One’s unfairly disposed to detect all sorts of qualities in the famous simply because they’re famous, while all they might actually have done was invent a mutton extract for a South Polar expedition.’
‘Exactly,’ said an Acquaintance. ‘Or dissolve a wife or two in a bath of acid.’
‘One thing you can say about him him - he looks like nobody’s idea of a composer.’
‘I suppose not,’ said Fora. ‘But I’m not sure how a composer
should look. That Beethovenesque romantic hero - you know, tousled hair, wind-tattered cloak, shaking his fist at lightening and generally living in squalor - that would frankly look pretty silly in Nineteen twenty-three, wouldn’t it?’
‘Granted. But even so you don’t expect him to look like a retired general full of equine anecdotes about linseed oil and skimmed milk and ante-post betting.’
Dora said: ‘I still don’t think there’s any point in applying ordinary standards of behaviour to completely extraordinary people. Look at all that music he’s given the world which they’ll still be playing long after we’re forgotten. You can teach even quite stupid children to say please and thank- you and hold doors open for ladies and generally ape being a good little social animal, but who can you train to write
The Dream of Gerontius or even
Land of Hope and Glory?’‘I still think it hurts nobody to be moderately polite.’
‘Dora’s got a point,’ said another Acquaintance who had so far not spoken. ‘Surely a genius is someone whose gift is so commanding, so overwhelming that there’s no space or energy left over for bothering with niceties. Most of the geniuses one can think of were pretty odd in one way or another. You’d have said the y were half crazy if they hadn’t been writing or painting or composing works which were obviously of greater importance than the unconventional private life of the man who created them.’
