Enigma Variations - The Enigma

The Enigma

Determining which of Elgar's friends is represented in each variation is, surprisingly, not the "enigma" mentioned in the title. The identities of all are known, and Elgar himself even provided brief notes on the subjects to accompany the five Duo-art pianola rolls of the Variations that the Aeolian Company introduced in 1929. Instead, there is a theme hidden in the work that is "not played." Various attempts have been made to link the clues Elgar gave throughout his lifetime to any one solution; in a programme note for the first performance, Charles A. Barry quoted:

The Enigma I will not explain - its 'dark saying' must be left unguessed, and I warn you that the connection 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 ... the chief character is never on the stage. —Edward Elgar

Elgar also wrote the following, in a set of notes issued with the Aeolian Company pianola rolls published in 1929:

The alternation of the two quavers and two crotchets in the first bar and their reversal in the second bar will be noticed; references to this grouping are almost continuous (either melodically or in the accompanying figures - in Variation XIII, beginning at bar 11, for example). The drop of a seventh in the Theme (bars 3 and 4) should be observed. At bar 7 (G major) appears the rising and falling passage in thirds which is much used later, e.g. Variation III, bars 10.16. —E.E.

Julian Rushton suggests that any solution must satisfy five criteria, three of which stemming from the above quotations: a "dark saying" must be involved; the theme "is not played"; the theme should be "well known", as Elgar stated multiple times; Dora Penny (to whom Elgar also wrote the Dorabella Cipher) should have been, "of all people," the one to solve the Enigma; and finally, the details mentioned in the notes accompanying the pianola rolls may be part of the solution.

Norman Del Mar speculates that “there would be considerable loss if the solution were to be found, much of the work’s attraction lying in the impenetrability of the riddle itself”, that interest in the work would not be as strong had the Enigma been solved during Elgar's lifetime.