Edward Elgar Enigma Variations
Ryan Bancroft conducts music filled with portraits of friends – and an unsolved enigma.
About the video
- Filmed 31 mars 2022.
- The video is approximately 34 minutes.
Edward Elgar achieved his great breakthrough with the Enigma Variations in 1899. The fourteen variations are musical portraits of people close to him – his wife Alice, friends and colleagues – capturing their personalities and quirks with both warmth and humour.
Above the opening theme, Elgar wrote the word ‘Enigma’. He also explained that another, larger theme runs through the entire work without ever being played. What exactly he meant has never been established, and the mystery continues to inspire new attempts to solve the enigma.
The most famous is the ninth variation, Nimrod, a warm portrait of Elgar’s close friend and publisher August Jaeger. With its gradual, measured build-up, it has become one of Elgar’s best-loved pieces. In the finale, it is the composer’s own turn to step forward: Elgar concludes the sequence of portraits of his friends with a magnificent portrait of himself.
-
The music
-
Edward Elgar Enigma Variations
-
Participants
-
Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra
-
Ryan Bancroft conductor
