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I’ve Got a Secret: Elgar’s Enigma
Allen Gimbel

Lawrence University, March 1994

The following lecture was given at Lawrence University preceding a performance of Elgar's 'Enigma Variations' by the Lawrence Symphony Orchestra, Bridget Michaele-Reischel conducting, March 1994. For further work on Elgar, see my 'Elgar's Prize Song: Quotation and Allusion in the Second Symphony' in 19th Century Music, vol. xii/3(Spring 1989), 231-240.

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[play Enigma Variations Theme]

Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, there was a TV show -- a quiz show, to be precise -- entitled 'I've Got a Secret.' According to the 'Complete Directory of Prime Time Network TV Shows' (Fifth Edition) the format of this show ran as follows:

"Four panelists took turns questioning the person with the secret to determine what the secret was. A nominal financial award was given to a contestant whose secret (flashed on the TV screen for the viewing audience) could not be guessed by the panel. Each show gave three regular contestants an opportunity to stump the panel, and also had one celebrity guest with his own secret to hide."

There is no documentary evidence that Edward Elgar was ever a contestant (celebrity or otherwise) on this program, and such evidence is unlikely to be forthcoming, since the show premiered in 1952 and Sir Edward died in 1934. So much for musicology.

Nevertheless, the preceding is most relevant to the matter at hand because the passion for secrets is by no means limited to the world of network TV quiz shows. In the arts, most of us have had occasion to puzzle over the "meaning" of a poem, a symbol in a painting, or a novel, or a film. But can such secrets exist in MUSIC -- the most pristine, pure, and "meaningless" of the arts?

The modernist emphasis on purity was of little concern to practicing serious musicians throughout previous centuries. Machaut's Notre Dame Mass of the 14th century opens with the musical symbol of the Cross (a-b-g-a) set to the word "Kyrie"; countless composers of the 15th and 16th centuries buried pop tunes in the tenors of their masses; Baroque composers wrote puzzle canons which are indecipherable without knowledge of the rules (which are different for each canon). In the 19th century it was Robert Schumann who was the most persistent public purveyor of puzzles -- writing to a composer friend about his new piece 'Carnaval' in 1833, he states that "to decipher the masked ball will be a game for you." And what do we make of the supposed arch-formalist Johannes Brahms, whose Second Piano Concerto contains no less than the 'Battle Hymn of the Republic' popping up in the first movement's development? Or the Third Symphony with its F-A(b)-F motive symbolizing "Frei aber Froh" ("free but glad")? His First Piano Concerto's Rondo is a clear homage to Beethoven, very specifically, that is, the Rondo of Beethoven's Piano Concerto #3. So even Brahms has a secret. (And then there's this Mahler guy...)

So now that I've brought up Beethoven, I can begin talking about the Enigma Variations (he'll come up again later). The work consists of a theme -- marked 'Enigma' in the score -- and 14 variations, each of which is headed in the score by unidentified initials or ciphers. And as if that were not enough: In the program notes for the work's premiere performance in 1899, Elgar was quoted as stating that through this music "another and larger theme 'goes', but is not played." "The Enigma I will not explain -- its 'dark saying' must be left unguessed."

The score is "dedicated to my friends pictured within", but the task of identifying the friends represented by the appended initials or ciphers is not difficult (because it was done by Elgar himself). It is thus clear that the Enigma is contained within the Theme, not within the subjects of the variations. Nevertheless, a brief description of the variations with their relationships to the Enigma tune follows.

1) C.A.E= Elgar's wife, Alice. The tune is the same, but the rhythm is changed. [Note the Tristan quote!]

2) H.D.S.P= Heu D. Steuart Powell, a pianist friend who had trouble sightreading. The rhythm is changed, but the tune is the same.

3) R.B.T= R.B. Townsend, a close friend's brother-in-law whose voice broke into falsetto when excited. The tune is the same, but the rhythm is changed.

4) W.M.B= W. Meath Baker, an excitable friend who bosses his guests around. Here, the tune and rhythm are the same, but the meter is changed.

5) R.P.A= Richard P. Arnold, who was alternately melancholy and good-humored: his laugh went HA-ha-ha, ha-ha-HA-ha-ha (notation: 2 sixteenths, 1 eighth, 2 sixteenths (beamed), 2 sixteenths, 1 eighth (beamed)), which is the variation's B section. The Enigma tune is in minor here to illustrate Mr. Arnold's melancholy, and both tune and rhythm are the same as in the theme.

6) Ysobel= Isabel Litton, a violist who had difficulty with string crossings (what a surprise) [1]. The tune is virtually unrecognizable (what a surprise).

7) Troyte= Arthur Troyte Griffith, an architect, artist, and scholar who couldn't play the piano, but tried anyway. The pitches of the theme are nowhere to be found, but a mangled version of its rhythm appears in the bass.

8) W.N. = Winifred Norbury, a lady with a musical laugh, the rhythm of which (notation: dotted eighth, 16th, 2 sixteenths (all beamed), 2 sixteenths, dotted eighth, 16th (beamed)) has striking relations with the theme, but more on that below. [Note the near-symmetry of rhythm (that is, mirror symmetry) and the foreshadowing of the Nimrod variation to follow with the motive's second half rhythm. Also note the association of that motive with laughter.]

9) Nimrod = A.J. Jaeger, a reader for Elgar's publisher, and his closest friend. This stunning variation recalls a conversation about Beethoven, and in fact the first 3 bars contain the outline of the slow movement of Beethoven's 'Pathetique' Sonata. At the same time, the Enigma theme is stated exactly, though here in major: (notation: two eighths, quarter, quarter; quarter, quarter, two eighths etc.) And so, the Enigma is revealed -- it's Beethoven, right? Wrong. (Or perhaps: not quite.)

10) Dorabella = Dora Penny, who had a hesitation in her speech (notation: four sixteenths, quarter rest, quarter rest, four sixteenths). There is a joke here. After Nimrod, nothing further could possibly be said, so Dora is the perfect choice to follow it. She can't get a sentence out anyway, and when she does, it has nothing to do with anything relevant. In fact, this is not a variation at all, which is why Elgar calls it an "intermezzo".

11) G.R.S= George R. Sinclair, an organist friend, though this is not Mr. Sinclair at all, but his dog. The tune is the same, which will soon give us food for thought.

12) B.G.N= B.G. Nevinson, a cellist friend (the variation is for solo cello) -- the tune is the same (though ornamented), but the rhythm is altered.

13)***= Lady Mary Lygon, who went on a cruise -- that explains why there are three asterisks rather than a name: she's not there. Neither is the theme, though its rhythm (notation: quarter, quarter, two eighths; two eighths, quarter, quarter) appears as an ostinato under a quotation from Mendelssohn's overture 'Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage' (get it?).

14) E.D.U= Elgar himself. The Finale opens with an allusion to the Ninth Symphony of -- Beethoven -- [but is the main theme also the Grail?]. Then we hear Elgar's wife -- an apotheosis -- an organ! (though not tonight). [The new Lawrence organ was not installed yet.]

[Play theme]

"Through this music another and larger theme goes, but is not played... the Enigma I will not explain -- its dark saying must be left unguessed."

But that has not stopped people from trying. A long, long time ago -- once upon a time -- I was engaged in research on Elgar's Second Symphony, the results of which appeared in the Spring 1989 issue of '19th Century Music' (in our library, for the curious). While sifting through masses of Elgariana at the New York Public Library's Music Division at Lincoln Center (I'm from New York, you know,) I made it a point to see if anyone had figured out the Enigma, since conversations with friends and colleagues made it alarmingly clear that no one had -- or at least with any specificity. Most were lost in tune hunting -- the tune contained everything from 'God Save the Queen' to the Benedictus from his friend Charles Stanford's Requiem. The latest entry in this sweepstakes is by the musicologist Joseph Cooper, relating it to Mozart's Prague Symphony (it is tempting to relate it to Leroy Anderson's immortal 'Plink, Plank, Plunk' -- the theme music from 'I've Got a Secret' -- but the dates don't match.) Others turned to poetics -- Jerrold Northrop Moore, in his "definitive" 823 page tome on the composer ('Edward Elgar -- A Creative Life') solves it right on p. 259:

"the Enigma is nothing more or less than just the 17 bars of music out of which the Variations grow... It was the inchoate blackness out of which creation comes."

So much for musicology. And so much for formalism -- "the theme of the Enigma is the theme of the Enigma." Purity may be bliss, but it cannot address meaning. So much for modernism.

da-da-DA-DA, DA-DA-da-da. This problem clearly calls for a music theorist! (Notation: quarter rest, eighth eighth (beamed), quarter quarter; quarter rest, quarter quarter eighth eighth (beamed).) The second bar exhibits a retrograde-symmetrical relationship to the first bar. da-da-DA-DA, DA-DA-da-da. In other words -- it's a MIRROR! And so, when Sir Edward looks in the mirror in the morning, he sees -- not only shaving cream -- but his friends, his wife, and, above all, BEETHOVEN -- and so sees HIMSELF IN THEM (and even in their pets).

Perhaps musicology can clinch this after all. Michael Kennedy, in his 'Portrait of Elgar', documents a letter Elgar wrote to our tongue-tied stutterer Dora Penny ('Dorabella') which is signed with the opening 4 notes of the Enigma theme and under which he wrote "the name Edward Elgar 'goes' in almost natural speech-rhythm." And so would its reflection.

The final mystery would be this question: how could something so obvious be missed by distinguished scholars for almost a century? Many have surmised that the Enigma has something to do with "Elgar himself", but to my knowledge the simple mirror symmetry that pervades -- indeed IS -- the theme remains undocumented. And so, I await my nominal financial award. Enjoy the concert.

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NOTES

[1] This and the following comment enraged one of my colleagues (a fine violist) to the point of cornering me after the lecture and lashing me with a scalding tirade on the struggles of attaining violistic mastery. I'm sympathetic, and I love the instrument (see my Duo for Viola and Contrabass, which my colleague gave a definitive performance of, or my String Quartet), but neither I nor Elgar are the last to make viola jokes. Just put "viola jokes" into your search engine and enjoy.

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