Edward Elgar, "Enigma" Variations

One day in the summer of 1898, Sir Edward Elgar, the foremost British composer since the days of Handel and Purcell, was improvising at the piano in his home, absorbed and distracted, when suddenly a theme attracted the attention of his wife who, respectful and restrained, asked him to repeat it. Edward gladly agreed. Encouraged by the interest of his spouse, Edward not only repeated the theme but also made variations on it for a long while. When finishing, he thought that the material could be used to make a series of musical portraits of his friends, who would have to guess the variation that portrayed them. Sir Edward, among his many hobbies, was also a lover of riddles.

Enigma Variations
Thus was born one of the masterpieces of Edward William Elgar, born in 1857 in Broadhead, England, knighted in 1904, and died in Worcester in 1934.

Popularly known as the Enigma Variations, the Variations on an Original Theme for Orchestra Opus 36 consists of fourteen variations on a theme that remains hidden – in Elgar's words, "is never played". Of all of them, the ninth variation is the jewel of the group.

Sir Edward Elgar (1857 - 1934)

Elgar titled it "Nimrod", in reference to an Old Testament patriarch described as "a brave hunter in the presence of the Lord". The variation IX is supposed to portray Augustus J. Jaeger, a close friend of Elgar's whose surname in German means "hunter", and who was a permanent critic and spiritual support of the author in difficult times, which he certainly had.

The welcome to the work
Despite the fascination of the refined orchestration, the critics received the Variations... with some astonishment, but at the same time, they were perplexed by the programmatic content, which was considered not very serious – just musical portraits of the composer's friends. Nevertheless, a few years later the work was successfully performed in St. Petersburg, garnering the admiration of Glazunov and Rimsky-Korsakov. In 1910 it had its premiere in New York under the baton of Gustav Mahler.

"Nimrod" and the Pathetique Sonata

Legend has it that while in a state of depression, Elgar was visited by his friend Jaeger who, upon seeing him in that condition, reminded him of all the torments Beethoven had gone through, ending his harangue with an inflamed intonation of the Adagio from the Pathetique Sonata.

Elgar would thank the gesture by "quoting" in his composition the opening bars of the adagio in variation IX, "Nimrod."

The rendition is by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by maestro Leonard Bernstein.