Elgar Enigma Variations
EDWARD ELGAR 1857 - 1934
VARIATIONS ON AN ORIGINAL THEME ('Enigma') Opus 36
Although this work is commonly known by the title 'Enigma', the great unanswered question is exactly what the puzzle is supposed to be. In pencil, Elgar wrote the word 'enigma' by the theme after having completed composition of the entire work, and he later said that the riddle's "dark saying must be left unguessed." Each variation is accompanied by initials or a nickname, referring to the acquaintance of Elgar's whose personality is ostensibly represented. But this provides no mystery: the people in question can be easily identified.
Causing some consternation among music scholars is Elgar's comment that "through and over the whole set another and larger theme goes, but is not played." This has led some to speculate that the 'enigma' theme is itself derived from another melody, perhaps one from a different composition, or even by a different composer. Yet no convincing candidate theme has been offered in support of this theory. Whatever the case, Elgar either lost interest in the 'enigma' gimmick or simply decided that the answer was best left unknown, since in his later life he referred to the work only as "my Variations." Regardless, the great success of the piece catapulted the composer to widespread renown: he received an honorary doctorate from Cambridge the year after the work was first performed in 1899, and he came to be regarded almost overnight as the finest composer England had yet produced.
The work owes its lasting popularity to its colourful orchestration and its brilliantly defined characters. The theme itself is built on two contrasting though interwoven ideas; the first, in the minor, is patterned sequentially over a firm rising bass; the second is more flowing and rhapsodic in the major key. A cadence in the major leads into the first of the fourteen variations, which offer glimpses into Elgar's relationships with the following people:
1 CAE
The initials are those of Lady Elgar, and according to the composer the variation is "really a prolongation of the theme with what I wished to be romantic and delicate additions".
2 HDS-P
Hew David Steuart-Powell was a well-known amateur pianist who frequently played chamber music with Elgar. His characteristic diatonic run over the keys before beginning to play is suggested. The theme appears in the bass.
3 RTB
R B Townsend's reedy voice is parodied by a bassoon in this mazurka-like variation.
4 WMB
The initials stand for W Neath Baker, a country squire, gentleman and scholar. According to the composer, this variation depicts an occasion when WMB had forcibly read out the arrangements for carriages to assembled guests at a house party and then left the music room with an inadvertant bang of the door!
5 RPA
The scholar and painter Richard Arnold, the son of Matthew Arnold, was a great lover of music and a self-taught pianist. According to Elgar his serious conversation was frequently broken up by whimsical and witty remarks.
6 YSOBEL
Isabel Fitton was a Malvern lady, and a keen amateur viola player. The opening bar, a phrase made use of throughout the variation, is a basic student exercise in string crossing!
7 TROYTE
Arthur Troyte Griffith was a Malvern architect who designed Elgar's house, and the music hammers out great blocks of sound as if in preparation for the construction of some noble edifice. Troyte thought that the music represented himself and Elgar running for shelter having been caught in a thunderstorm.
8 WN
Winifred Norbury was the most musical member of a large family. There is in the music a suggestion of her characteristic laugh. After relaxing all the way down to a single note, held by the violins, the music moves directly into the following variation, without doubt the most celebrated of the set.
9 NIMROD
August Johannes Jaeger of Novello & Co. was for many years Elgar's closest friend and a valued adviser. Jaeger is German for 'hunter' and Nimrod is 'the mighty hunter'. According to the composer, his noble variation is the record of a long summer evening talk between the two men, when Jaeger discoursed elequently on the slow movements of Beethoven.
10 DORABELLA
Dorabella is a character from Mozart's opera Cosi fan Tutti, but it was also Elgar's nickname for his young acquaintance Dora Penny. Her poise is represented by the ballet-like grace of the variation, but she also had a slight stammer, to which Elgar alludes with lilting interruptions in the woodwind.
11 GRS
George Robertson Sinclair was for many years the organist at Hereford Cathedral. The variation, however, has nothing to do with organs or cathedrals. In Elgar's own words: "The first few bars were suggested by his great bulldog Dan falling into the River Wye (bar 1); his paddling upstream to find a landing place (bars 2 & 3); and his rejoicing bark on landing (2nd half of bar 5), GRS said "Set that to music!" I did; and here it is."
12 BGN
A meditative cello solo, such as might have been played by Basil Nevinson, an amateur musician of some distinction, and a close friend of the composer.
13 ***
The asterisks take the place of the name of a lady, possibly Lady Mary Trefusis, who was, at the time of the composition, on a sea voyage. The drums suggest the distant throb af a liner, over which the clarinet quotes a phrase from Mendelsohn's 'Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage'.
14 EDU
'Edoo' was Lady Elgar's nickname for Elgar himself. The work was written at a time when friends were dubious and generally discouraging as to the composer's musical future, and this last variation serves to show Elgar's self confidence in the face of such doubts. References to Variation 1 (CAE) and Variation 9 (Nimrod), the two great influences on the life and art of the composer, are entirely fitting to the intention of this finale, the effect of which is cumulative, with the big climaxes arising out of the musical texture and finally the original theme emerging to ride triumphantly above the great swell of sound.
Causing some consternation among music scholars is Elgar's comment that "through and over the whole set another and larger theme goes, but is not played." This has led some to speculate that the 'enigma' theme is itself derived from another melody, perhaps one from a different composition, or even by a different composer. Yet no convincing candidate theme has been offered in support of this theory. Whatever the case, Elgar either lost interest in the 'enigma' gimmick or simply decided that the answer was best left unknown, since in his later life he referred to the work only as "my Variations." Regardless, the great success of the piece catapulted the composer to widespread renown: he received an honorary doctorate from Cambridge the year after the work was first performed in 1899, and he came to be regarded almost overnight as the finest composer England had yet produced.
The work owes its lasting popularity to its colourful orchestration and its brilliantly defined characters. The theme itself is built on two contrasting though interwoven ideas; the first, in the minor, is patterned sequentially over a firm rising bass; the second is more flowing and rhapsodic in the major key. A cadence in the major leads into the first of the fourteen variations, which offer glimpses into Elgar's relationships with the following people:
1 CAE
The initials are those of Lady Elgar, and according to the composer the variation is "really a prolongation of the theme with what I wished to be romantic and delicate additions".
2 HDS-P
Hew David Steuart-Powell was a well-known amateur pianist who frequently played chamber music with Elgar. His characteristic diatonic run over the keys before beginning to play is suggested. The theme appears in the bass.
3 RTB
R B Townsend's reedy voice is parodied by a bassoon in this mazurka-like variation.
4 WMB
The initials stand for W Neath Baker, a country squire, gentleman and scholar. According to the composer, this variation depicts an occasion when WMB had forcibly read out the arrangements for carriages to assembled guests at a house party and then left the music room with an inadvertant bang of the door!
5 RPA
The scholar and painter Richard Arnold, the son of Matthew Arnold, was a great lover of music and a self-taught pianist. According to Elgar his serious conversation was frequently broken up by whimsical and witty remarks.
6 YSOBEL
Isabel Fitton was a Malvern lady, and a keen amateur viola player. The opening bar, a phrase made use of throughout the variation, is a basic student exercise in string crossing!
7 TROYTE
Arthur Troyte Griffith was a Malvern architect who designed Elgar's house, and the music hammers out great blocks of sound as if in preparation for the construction of some noble edifice. Troyte thought that the music represented himself and Elgar running for shelter having been caught in a thunderstorm.
8 WN
Winifred Norbury was the most musical member of a large family. There is in the music a suggestion of her characteristic laugh. After relaxing all the way down to a single note, held by the violins, the music moves directly into the following variation, without doubt the most celebrated of the set.
9 NIMROD
August Johannes Jaeger of Novello & Co. was for many years Elgar's closest friend and a valued adviser. Jaeger is German for 'hunter' and Nimrod is 'the mighty hunter'. According to the composer, his noble variation is the record of a long summer evening talk between the two men, when Jaeger discoursed elequently on the slow movements of Beethoven.
10 DORABELLA
Dorabella is a character from Mozart's opera Cosi fan Tutti, but it was also Elgar's nickname for his young acquaintance Dora Penny. Her poise is represented by the ballet-like grace of the variation, but she also had a slight stammer, to which Elgar alludes with lilting interruptions in the woodwind.
11 GRS
George Robertson Sinclair was for many years the organist at Hereford Cathedral. The variation, however, has nothing to do with organs or cathedrals. In Elgar's own words: "The first few bars were suggested by his great bulldog Dan falling into the River Wye (bar 1); his paddling upstream to find a landing place (bars 2 & 3); and his rejoicing bark on landing (2nd half of bar 5), GRS said "Set that to music!" I did; and here it is."
12 BGN
A meditative cello solo, such as might have been played by Basil Nevinson, an amateur musician of some distinction, and a close friend of the composer.
13 ***
The asterisks take the place of the name of a lady, possibly Lady Mary Trefusis, who was, at the time of the composition, on a sea voyage. The drums suggest the distant throb af a liner, over which the clarinet quotes a phrase from Mendelsohn's 'Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage'.
14 EDU
'Edoo' was Lady Elgar's nickname for Elgar himself. The work was written at a time when friends were dubious and generally discouraging as to the composer's musical future, and this last variation serves to show Elgar's self confidence in the face of such doubts. References to Variation 1 (CAE) and Variation 9 (Nimrod), the two great influences on the life and art of the composer, are entirely fitting to the intention of this finale, the effect of which is cumulative, with the big climaxes arising out of the musical texture and finally the original theme emerging to ride triumphantly above the great swell of sound.
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