AFTER a long day teaching the violin, Elgar and his wife Alice joked about how their friends might develop a simple tune, given their distinctive personalities - from a memorable laugh to likeable pomposity and poor piano-playing, and even the organist of Hereford Cathedral’s bulldog, splashing about in the River Wye.
The result was the ‘Enigma Variations’, a suite of fourteen variations on an original theme, of which Variation IX, ‘Nimrod’ is by far the most well-known. ‘Nimrod’ is a figure in the Old Testament, ‘a mighty hunter before the Lord’, and was chosen to represent Elgar’s publisher Augustus J. Jaeger, whose surname means ‘hunter’ in German.
Elgar was subject to fits of depression, and on one such occasion it was Jaeger who talked him round, pointing to Beethoven’s courage in adversity and the superlative music that flowered amid it. Unlike the other variations, ‘Nimrod’ is not an affectionately teasing portrait: it is a tale of a true friendship’s beautiful victory.
Précis
One day, Elgar and his wife played a game improvising variations on a tune that reminded them of their friends. The game turned into his ‘Enigma Variations’, and Variation IX, ‘Nimrod’, is a popular favourite in Britain. It tells in music the story Elgar’s battle with depression, and the encouragement he received from his friend and publisher, Augustus Jaeger. (59 / 60 words)