What the meaning of Edward Elgar’s ‘Enigma’ is within his ‘Enigma Variations’ has fascinated musicologists and enthusiasts ever since the piece’s first performance in 1899. In this essay, I look at the background behind the Enigma and consider, in turn, three main musical solutions that each suggest a melody that could work in counterpoint with the original theme.
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ENIGMA THEORIES
Richard Powell (Auld Lang Syne): https://academic.oup.com/ml/article-abstract/XV/3/203/1049686?redirectedFrom=fulltext
Robert Padgett (Ein Feste Burg ist unser Gott) http://enigmathemeunmasked.blogspot.com/
Charles Richard Santa and Matthew Santa (Pi / π): https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/download/fedora_content/download/ac:178731/content/current.musicology.89.santa_santa.75-89.pdf
Ed Newton-Rex (Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater) : https://medium.com/world-of-music/pergolesis-stabat-mater-the-solution-to-elgar-s-enigma-variations-5f1f7dd2158a
Byron Adams (The “Dark Saying” of the Enigma: Homoeroticism and the Elgarian Paradox): https://www.jstor.org/stable/746879?seq=1
Mark Pitt (Liszt’s ‘Les Préludes’): https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/01/12/police-inspector-claims-has-solved-mystery-behind-elgars-enigma/
FURTHER READING/RESEARCH
Roger Fiske (The Enigma: A Solution): https://www.jstor.org/stable/951679?seq=1
#Elgar #Nimrod