“Dedicated to My Friends Pictured Within,” Elgar's Enigma Variations consist of musical portraits of thirteen of the composer's friends, and a finale depicting Elgar himself. Elgar never revealed either the significance or the origin of the theme, which he labeled Enigma in the score. The theme came to him, he said, “after a long and tiresome day's teaching, aided by a cigar.”

Here is the cast of characters, in the order of their appearance as variations: 1) Caroline Alice, Elgar's wife; 2) pianist Hew David Stuart-Powell; 3) actor Richard Baxter Townshend; 4) Elgar's neighbor William Meath Baker; 5) Richard Penrose Arnold, Matthew Arnold's son; 6) violist Isobel Fitton; 7) architect Arthur Troyte Griffith; 8) pianist Winifred Norbury; 9) “Nimrod,” or Arthur Jaeger, Elgar's close friend; 10) “Dorabella,” or Dora Penny; 11) organist George Robertson Sinclair and his bulldog, Dan; 12) cellist Basil Nevinson; 13) (the score is marked only with three asterisks and the word “Romanza”), believed to be Lady Mary Lygon. The last variation is really the finale, a portrait of Elgar himself.

The first performance of the Enigma Variations was conducted by Hans Richter on June 19, 1899, in London. The critic for The Times complained that “it is evidently impossible for the uninitiated to discuss the meaning of the work,” but admitted that “on the surface” the work was “exceedingly clever, often charming and always original, and excellently worked out.”  Another review said that “the Variations stand in no need of a programme; as abstract music they fully satisfy.”

The subject of the “Nimrod” variation, Arthur Jaeger, wrote: “Here is an English musician who has something to say and knows how to say it in his own individual and beautiful way…. He writes as he feels, there is no affectation or make-believe.  Effortless originality--the only true originality--combined with thorough savoir-faire and, most important of all, beauty of theme, warmth and feeling are his credentials, and they should open to him the hearts of all who have faith in the future of our English art and appreciate beautiful music wherever it is met.”

~ Program Notes by Charley Samson, copyright 2022.