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Listen4listening Guides Listen4 listening guides A brief guide to listening to Edward Elgar’s Variations on an Original Theme, op. 36, “Enigma” This outline serves as a listening guide, or “road map,” through a work being performed today. The intention is to help you follow along and enjoy it in more depth. We welcome you to email us with your reactions at [email protected]. Now ... let the music begin! Excluding “Pomp and Circumstance,” Edward Elgar’s “Enigma” Variations, written in 1899, is surely his most renowned composition. There were originally two enigmas associated with the piece. The first is who was depicted in each of the fourteen variations. Elgar dedicated the work “to my friends, pictured within” and then wrote a fourteenth movement he identified as depicting himself. Even more mysteriously, what was the melody that inspired the variations? Elgar famously said, “… the larger theme ‘goes,’ but is not played .... So the principal theme never appears, even as in some late dramas … the chief character is never on stage.” The identity of the people in the composer’s immediate circle whom he depicts was revealed, but speculation continues about the latter enigma. Some wonder if the enigma isn’t even a musical one. In any case, the music in this work stands on its own and is stately and witty in a reserved, quintessentially English fashion. Variation 1, C.A.E.: The first variation depicts Elgar’s wife 2 Alice (Caroline Alice Elgar), with a graceful introduction and then solo winds 1 Theme: Listen for the falling, wide intervals play the melody with string in the melody, something of a musical accompaniment. After a musical climax signature for Elgar. The movement is highlighted by the horns, the variation simplicity itself and allows Elgar plenty of returns to the strings for a quiet ending. room for variations. Variation 9, Nimrod: This variation is the heart and soul of the Enigma Variations. Nimrod was written for 3 Elgar’s dearest friend August Jaeger Variation 11, G.R.S.: (“Nimrod” can mean “the hunter,” as The violins dash down a scale and the does “Jaeger” in German) and is bassoon enters with a statement of the supposed to represent a long discussion theme in a low register. This variation they had regarding the slow movements depicts George R. Sinclair’s bulldog Dan of Beethoven. The slow arc of this tumbling into and paddling in the River variation begins with a quiet statement in Wye. Listen as the melody is played in the the strings and very gradually builds to a low instruments representing Dan, while profoundly moving climax. the violins represent the swift current of the river. Variation 12, B.G.N.: Variation 14, E.D.U.: A plaintive solo cello opens and ends this “Edoo” was Elgar’s wife’s nickname for him, thus variation, dedicated to Elgar’s friend Basil 4 the “E.D.U.” subtitle for this movement. The G. Nevinson, an amateur cellist. The cello theme is broken up into small bits for the final section is featured in this movement, first variation representing Elgar himself. In addition to stating the theme and then developing it throwing in snippets of the different variations of further as the instrument’s wide range and the piece, this movement has many echoes of singing ability is shown off. Elgar’s famous Pomp and Circumstance and is a fitting conclusion to this superbly popular work. —Betsy Furth.
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