Elgar's Nimrod — the title is a pun. It is the ninth of the Enigma Variations and portrays his editor August Jaeger; Jäger is German for hunter, and the hunter in the Book of Genesis is Nimrod. Elgar said the variation records a conversation on a summer evening, when he was low enough to give up composing and Jaeger talked to him about Beethoven. 43 bars, two minutes thirty-five, travelling from the softest thing in it to the fullest. The full piano score is on screen, note by note.
A German surname, a hunter in Genesis, and one summer evening
In 1899 Elgar was 42 and not yet known when he wrote a theme and 14 variations, each portraying somebody he knew, headed only with initials or nicknames. The set is called the Enigma Variations because he said a further theme, never played, runs over the whole of it — a puzzle nobody has solved.
The ninth is headed Nimrod. It portrays August Jaeger, an editor at the London publisher Novello and one of Elgar's closest friends. Jäger is German for hunter, and Genesis names a mighty hunter called Nimrod — hence the title.
Elgar later explained what the variation records: on a summer evening, when he was low and talking about whether to go on composing, Jaeger spoke to him about Beethoven, and the circumstances in which Beethoven had kept writing. Elgar said the opening bars are meant to suggest the slow movement of the Pathétique sonata.
The piece has since left its parent work. In Britain it has become a standard piece for public mourning, played at remembrance ceremonies, state funerals and memorials. That was not what Elgar wrote it for: it is music about friendship and about being talked round, not an elegy.
One thing that gets overlooked: the score says Adagio, crotchet equals 52. That is Elgar's own marking, faster than almost every performance today. This recording takes the printed figure.
In Britain this is the music of remembrance
Hans Zimmer wove this melody into the last half hour of Nolan's Dunkirk (2017) — the only stretch of that film with a tune in it.
In Britain it was already the music of remembrance: Diana's funeral in 1997, and the Cenotaph every Remembrance Sunday.
It begins almost inaudible and ends with everything ringing
It starts very quietly. A rising line settles the shape of the whole piece in 4 notes, over slow-moving harmony, both hands low and middle, with no ornament at all.
The variation does one thing from beginning to end: it says the same sentence louder. There is no second theme and no contrasting section — just one melody, thicker and higher each time.
After 0:58 it starts to grow. The register lifts, the chords underneath thicken, and the line begins to carry weight.
From 1:26 comes the widest span in the piece — down to B-flat 0 and up to D-sharp 6, more than 6 octaves between the hands, and the sound suddenly has room.
After 1:53 comes the fullest stretch, averaging nearly 19 notes a bar with both hands laying down chords; this is the summit.
The last three bars let go — the count falls to about 10, the sound withdraws to the height it began at, and it settles somewhere very quiet.
As background it depends on the occasion. It is slow and there is nothing fast in it, but the volume travels from barely audible to large; better for listening alone than for hours of work.
Forty-three bars, and the span pulls apart halfway
43 bars and 678 sounding notes, with 7 grace notes besides, in 3/4 and E-flat major, with no repeats. The score carries 18 dynamics, 11 hairpins and 44 pedal spans.
Bar counts climb from 11 to 27: the first eight bars average 14.1, and bars 33 to 40 average 18.9. The count rises steadily, and only the ending is an exception.
The change of range is more striking than the change of density. Bars 1 to 8 reach up to G5 and down to G1; bars 25 to 32 reach D-sharp 6 and B-flat 0, adding a stretch at each end. That is where the music audibly opens out.
Bar 28 and bar 40 each hold 27 notes, the two peaks of the piece; bars 42 and 43 hold 7 each, the close.
The range is B-flat 0 to D-sharp 6, five and a half octaves, and the shortest note lasts 0.208 seconds.
The difficulty is how quiet the opening must be
First, the opening volume. The variation is one continuously growing line, and starting at a middling level leaves nowhere to go for twenty bars. Begin quietly enough to make yourself uneasy.
Second, keep the harmony level. The chords underneath change position on every beat, and any one of them sticking out cuts the line above; the weight here is in the whole, not in single notes.
Third, do not arrive early. The summit is around bar 40, and every thickening before that can only add a little.
Fourth, the last three bars. The ritardando is written and the note counts really do fall; let go under control rather than all at once.
Fifth, the tempo. The score prints Adagio, 52 to the crotchet, which is what this recording takes, running 2 minutes 32. Note that nearly every recording is far slower — that is performance tradition, not what is on the page; if the score seems to move faster than you remember, this is why.
We rate this 3 out of 5 — the notes are not hard; the control and the wide chords are.
The other people in the set, and his loud face
The Enigma Variations comprise a theme and fourteen variations, each portraying somebody: the first is his wife Alice, the eleventh is Sinclair, the Hereford organist, and his bulldog falling into the river, and the last is Elgar himself. Only this one has been made so far.
The channel also has Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance March No. 4 — the same man at his loudest, and dedicated to the very Sinclair of the eleventh variation. Heard together they are his two faces.
