One day, late in 1898, Elgar was idly musing at the piano, playing the theme that was to become the basis of the Enigma Variations. When his wife asked what it was, he said, “Nothing, but something might be made of it. Powell [Variation II] would have done this, or Nevinson [Variation XII] would have looked at it like this.” His wife commented, “Surely you are doing something that has never been done before?” Thus encouraged, Elgar rapidly produced an entire set of variations on his original theme. Each is headed by the initials or a punning version of the name of one of his friends, and the music is “what I think they would have written—if they were asses enough to compose.”

The first performance was a sensation. The musical world recognized at once that this work was the finest composition by a native-born English composer since the death of Purcell two centuries earlier. But the work raised questions because of two mysteries connected with it. The first of these was a simple one, the identification of the “friends pictured within.” The second one has lasted to this day, and generated literally dozens of solutions. At some point, Elgar wrote in the manuscript, over his theme, the word “Enigma,” and at the first performance he wrote the following mysterious comment:

The Enigma I will not explain—its “dark saying” must be left unguessed and I warn you that the apparent connection between the Variations and the Theme is often of the slightest texture; further, through and over the whole set another and larger theme “goes” but is not played. . . . So the principal theme never appears, even as in some late dramas—e.g. Maeterlinck’s L’Intruse and Les Sept Princesses—the chief character is never on the stage.

This has generated an entire literature of attempted “solutions” to the puzzle, some of them claiming to find a musical theme (like “Auld lang syne”) that fits in counterpoint to Elgar’s score, others insisting that the “theme” is an idea like “friendship” or “Britannia.” The solutions are ingenious and fascinating, but they are of little significance in comparison to the sheer musical mastery of Elgar’s work. Each section is a “character variation,” changing its mood, personality, and even basic shape according to the composer’s perception of its subject.

Elgar himself identified these people in a set of notes published in 1913. Extracts from his remarks are quoted below.

The theme is itself remarkable, going by stops and starts, broken up into little fragments, each of which has a life of its own later on. The first four notes of the tune provide a perfect setting, in pitch and rhythm, of the composer’s name, as if he has thus written his signature into the whole work.

I. (C.A.E.) Caroline Alice Elgar, the composer’s supportive wife, “really a prolongation of the theme with. . . . romantic and delicate additions.”

II. (H.D.S.-P.) Hew David Stewart-Powell played piano in a trio with Elgar and Basil Nevinson (Variation XII). “His characteristic diatonic run over the keys before beginning to play is here humorously travestied . . . but chromatic beyond H.D.S.-P.’s liking.”

III. (R.B.T.) Richard Baxter Townsend, author of A Tenderfoot in Colorado and other books, a classical scholar and lovable eccentric. Elgar says that the variation refers to his performance in some amateur theatricals in which his voice occasionally “cracked” to soprano (suggested by the oboe as the leading instrument).

IV. (W.M.B.) William Meath Baker, a country squire with a blustery way about him; here he gives the “orders of the day” to his houseguests, who (in the middle section) tease him.

V. (R.P.A.) Richard Penrose Arnold, a son of novelist Matthew Arnold. “His serious conversation was continually broken up by whimsical and witty remarks.”

VI. (Ysobel) Isabel Fitton, an amateur viola player; Elgar gives the leading line to the viola, building it on a familiar exercise in crossing the strings, “a difficulty for beginners.”

VII. (Troyte) One of Elgar’s closest friends, Arthur Troyte Griffith, an architect. The variations represents “some maladroit essays to play the pianoforte; later the strong rhythm suggests the attempts of the instructor (E.E.) to make something like order out of chaos, and the final despairing ‘slam’ records that the effort proved to be in vain.”

VIII. (W.N.) Winifred Norbury, whose spacious eighteenth-century house” is depicted.

IX. (Nimrod) August Jaeger (“Jaeger” is German for “hunter,” and Nimrod is the “mighty hunter” of the Old Testament) worked for Elgar’s publisher, Novello, and provided early enthusiasm and moral support for the composer. The variation recalls “a long summer talk, when my friend discoursed eloquently on the slow movements of Beethoven.” The theme is arranged at the start so as hint at the slow movement of Beethoven’s Pathétique Sonata. This variation is by far the best-known excerpt of the work, noble, poignant, and deeply felt.

Elgar, writing after Jaeger’s death, said, “Jaeger was for many years my dear friend, the valued adviser and the stern critic of many musicians besides the writer; his place has been occupied but never filled.”

X. (Dorabella) Dora Penny, later Mrs. Richard Powell, who wrote an interesting memoir entitled Memories of a Variation. This is a lighthearted contrast to the seriousness of “Nimrod.” Mrs. Powell herself only realized years later that Elgar was depicting her habit of stammering at times when she was young. But, she wrote, “he exploited his humor at my expense with such marvellous delicacy that no one could help laughing with him—if they understood it.”

XI. (G.R.S.) Dr. George R. Sinclair, organist of Hereford Cathedral, though according to Elgar, the variation has more to do with his bulldog Dan, whom he once saw “falling down the steep bank into the river Wye; . . . paddling upstream to find a landing place; . . . his rejoicing bark on landing. G.R.S. said, “Set that to music.” “I did; here it is.” All this takes place in the first five measures!

XII. (B.G.N.) Basil G. Nevinson, a fine amateur cellist. The variation features a cello solo as “a tribute to a very dear friend.”

XIII. (***) Something of a mystery. The asterisks represent a lady on a sea journey at the time of composition (hence the clarinet’s quotation of a theme from Mendelssohn’s overture Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage, under which the drums suggest the distant throb of an ocean liner), but there is some doubt as to whether Elgar was fully forthcoming in his commentary.

XIV. (E.D.U.) The initials here are purposely deceptive. They are in fact a representation of Mrs. Elgar’s nickname for her husband, “Edoo.” It is the composer’s own assertion of his sense of calling, of a self-confidence that he had hitherto lacked. It contains passing references to the variations of the two people who were most supportive at this time (C.A.E. and Nimrod), and concludes with a triumphant presentation of the theme in the major. —© Steven Ledbetter