Mysterious code Edward Elgar hid in Enigma Variations
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Can you solve the mysterious code Edward Elgar hid in ‘Enigma Variations’?
Sat 3 February 2024 0:00, UK
In literature and classical music, geniuses of a certain eccentricity enjoy putting their fans through their paces. For instance, the Irish author James Joyce dished out a dense wad of esoteric madness by the name of Ulysses in 1922. He claimed to have "put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant". Indeed, he did, and the book still sits at the apex of literary discourse a century on. At the end of the 19th century, Edward Elgar composed an analogous feat in classical music.
Whether or not you’re a fan of Ludvig Beethoven’s scintillating symphonies or Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s soaring sonatas, it’s hard not to be impressed by such composers’ talent. In his favoured field, violin-based classical orchestral music, Elgar is regarded as one of the all-time greats. Although the violin was his main instrument, Elgar was also a dab hand at the organ, violin, piano, and bassoon.
After a youth spent in performance, Elgar took up composition as his primary and most impactful vocation. Among his most enduring works are two symphonies, choral works like The Dream of Gerontius and, most famously, the orchestral pieces Pomp and Circumstance Marches and the Enigma Variations.
The Enigma Variations, which Elgar composed meticulously between 1898 and 1899, received widespread merit for its emotional timbre. However, within this essential piece of English classical composition is a hidden message or melody that adds to its allure.
Elgar dedicated Enigma Variations "to my friends pictured within", revealing that each variation was a musical sketch of one of his close friends. The emotions represent the friends’ different personalities, but the composition is also a musical cryptogram wherein the sequence of notes represents an extra-musical text or composition. Among the cryptic sketches were Elgar’s wife, Alice, his friend and publisher, Augustus J. Jaeger and Elgar himself.
Elgar confirmed this much but also supposedly lodged an enigma at the heart of the song, which is still yet to be conclusively discerned. "This work, commenced in a spirit of humour and continued in deep seriousness, contains sketches of the composer’s friends," Elgar wrote in a programme for a 1911 performance. "It may be understood that these personages comment or reflect on the original theme, and each one attempts a solution of the Enigma, for so the theme is called."
"The sketches are not ‘portraits’, but each variation contains a distinct idea founded on some particular personality or perhaps on some incident known only to two people," he continued. "This is the basis of the composition, but the work may be listened to as a ‘piece of music’ apart from any extraneous consideration."
Like moths against a lamp, musicologists have scratched their heads over this one for over a century. Many believe the Enigma to contain a hidden melody, but the case is still open. If you back yourself as a musical Alan Turing, perhaps you’d like to have a crack.
https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/code-edward-elgar-enigma-variations/