VEGANGELICA

I heard a performance of Elgar's "Enigma Variations" recently, and I became very fixated on the beautiful variation called "Nimrod," which is the high point in the piece. I agree this music would be a good place to start on one's venture into classical.

The conductor explained how Elgar wrote each variation about someone who had touched his life, starting with the first variation, which was about his wife, and ending with a variation, for Elgar himself, that incorporated aspects of all the other variations.

Elgar's final variation, about himself, is a beautiful way to symbolize through his music how all the people he loved or cared about were part of him.

One of the other variations includes around 20 seconds at the beginning when the music shows, through sound, Elgar's dog running down a hill, springing into the water of a lake, and then dog-paddling around before climbing onto the bank and shaking himself off, LOL!

A middle variation, "Nimrod," is the most famous Enigma variation. The conductor described "Nimrod" as being framed by all the other variations before and after, which serve much like the frame of a painting to help transition the person experiencing the artwork from the space outside the piece of art, and then into the artwork itself, and then back out again.

I liked the analogy between a composition of music and a visual art composition, because, if you think about it, listening to music and viewing a painting are very related: they are both temporal experiences that require you to be aware of relationships of parts to the whole as you appreciate the piece.

Elgar - Enigma Variations - "Nimrod"
This YouTube video had the best recording I could find of the piece. It is repeated 3 times here, which is great for those of us who like to listen to a piece of music again and again!



Nimrod: Elgar the philosopher - YouTube

__________________