"Music of Sir Edward Elgar"
May 1st, 2011
Program Notes

Nimrod, from The Enigma Variations, Op. 36

Edward Elgar (1857-1934)

Completed/Written In: 1899

Sir Edward William Elgar wrote Variations on an Original Theme for Orchestra ("Enigma"), Op. 36 between 1898 and 1899. The work was conceived when in 1898, after a long day of teaching violin, Elgar came back home and sat at the piano improvising melodies. His wife Alice liked one of the tunes so much that she asked her husband to play it again. Elgar did so and then proceeded to improvise variations on the tune molding each variation to portray the personality or musical style of friends of their friends. Eventually the composer orchestrated and expanded these variations resulting in a theme with 14 variations, each named after a friend. The enigma name stems, according to the composer, from a hidden theme than "is not played." Although there have been several attempts to decipher the enigma, none has been completely convincing and thus the enigma is still unsolved.

Variation IX "Nimrod" is named after Elgar's publisher and close friend Augustus J. Jaeger. In German the word 'jaeger' means hunter, and Nimrod is the name of a biblical patriarch in the Old Testament whose name means 'Mighty hunter before the Lord.' According to Dora Penny, a friend of the composer, Elgar confided to Jaeger his frustration and intention of giving up composing, but Jaeger told him to follow Beethoven's example: He had many worries but never stopped creating. Variation IX is a sublime adagio considered the heart of the Enigma Variations.

Concucetd by Gregory Campbell

Scored for: 2 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, and strings.
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