Elgar

[usonian]

1. Well, you caught my fragmented attention again.

This is the 9th variation, “Nimrod” of the set.

Nobody seems to know what the “enigma” is, though maybe it’s like Sherlock Holmes and the musical boxes, where the differences in the variations, “The Swagman” constitute the secret.
(Dressed to Kill)

The Enigma I will not explain – its "dark saying" must be left unguessed, and I warn you that the connexion 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 – eg Maeterlinck's L'Intruse and Les sept Princesses – the chief character is never on the stage

Hmmmmm.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enigma_Variations

This is the “grandest” of the variations, IMO, and like all the music I comment on, I have a piano reduction of it. 🎹

Elgar said that the opening of this variation had a touch of the (famous) second movement of Beethoven’s Pathetique Sonata

This one: