Who Is Elgar's Enigma Variations?
Sir Edward William Elgar was born June 2nd, 1857 in Lower Broadheath, England, and died February 23rd 1934 in Worcester. His Enigma Variations, in which 14 variations on a theme depict the lives and personalities of some of Elgar’s closest friends and colleagues, was composed between October 1898 and February 1899. The piece was premiered June 19th, 1899 at St. James’s Hall, with Hans Richter conducting, and was immediately popular. This would begin a period of about twenty years in which Elgar composed some of his most well-known masterpieces, including both symphonies, a violin concerto, and ending with the great E minor cello concerto Op. 85, his last large-scale orchestral work. Each one of the Enigma Variations interprets the theme through the eyes of one of his closest friends, identified in the score before each variation by initials or a nickname. The identities of each individual were revealed by Elgar himself in program notes for various performances, as well as in his posthumous publication My Friends Pictured Within: Enigma Variations, which
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“The variation is really a prolongation of the theme with what I wished to be romantic and delicate additions; those who knew C.A.E. will understand this reference to one whose life was a romantic and delicate inspiration.”
Variation II: H.D.S-P.
Hew David Steuart-Powell. “Hew David Steuart-Powell was a well-known amateur pianist and a great player of chamber music. His characteristic diatonic run over the keys before beginning to play is here humorously travestied in the semiquaver passages; these should suggest a Toccata, but chromatic beyond H.D.S-P.'s liking.
Variation VI: Ysobel
Isabel Fitton. A viola student of Elgar’s. “It may be noticed that the opening bar, a phrase made use of throughout the variation, is an “exercise” for crossing the strings - a difficulty for beginners; on this is built a pensive and, for a moment, romantic movement.”
IX:
“The variation is really a prolongation of the theme with what I wished to be romantic and delicate additions; those who knew C.A.E. will understand this reference to one whose life was a romantic and delicate inspiration.”
Variation II: H.D.S-P.
Hew David Steuart-Powell. “Hew David Steuart-Powell was a well-known amateur pianist and a great player of chamber music. His characteristic diatonic run over the keys before beginning to play is here humorously travestied in the semiquaver passages; these should suggest a Toccata, but chromatic beyond H.D.S-P.'s liking.
Variation VI: Ysobel
Isabel Fitton. A viola student of Elgar’s. “It may be noticed that the opening bar, a phrase made use of throughout the variation, is an “exercise” for crossing the strings - a difficulty for beginners; on this is built a pensive and, for a moment, romantic movement.”
IX: