Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Elgar's Variations for Orchestra, commonly known as the 'Enigma' Variations, marked an epoch both in his career, and in the renaissance of English music at the turn of the century. The first extended study of the work, this Cambridge Music Handbook contains historical information concerning the conception and writing of the work, an extended musical discussion requiring only a little technical knowledge of music, and a fascinating survey of the "solutions" to the mystery implied by the title of Elgar's most famous work.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• 1 Introduction
• 2 Composition
• 3 Variations: the theme
• 4 Friends pictured within
• 5 A form of self-portraiture
• 6 The enigmas
• 7 Postscript

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

First conducted by Hans Richter in 1899, Elgar's Variations on an Original Theme--the Enigma Variations--is arguably the greatest of all orchestral variations. It is at once moving and witty, quite flawless except for the unfortunate overreaching of its finale. Thanks to his impeccable scholarship and judgment--and despite his dreary academic prose--Rushton (Univ. of Leeds, UK) ventilates thoroughly the riddles of the "enigma": What, exactly, does it refer to? What tunes have been (unsuccessfully?) suggested as the basis for the "enigma" theme and as the hidden counterpoint to that theme? What do Elgar's cryptic references to a "dark saying" and "another, larger theme" mean? Why should Dorabella (Dora Penny), especially, have been able to guess the solution? Rushton briefly discusses how the composer came to compose the Variations and what his extant sketches suggest; he tells the reader something (not, alas, enough) about the dedicatees, the "friends pictured therein." Despite deadly and/or elementary musical analyses ("an augmented-sixth chord arrives") and the fact that he conveys nothing of the aural magic of the music itself, his discussion of the work's recordings is insightful, invigorating, and all too short. His notes and bibliography are first-class. Recommended, warts and all, for all undergraduate and graduate libraries and all Enigma lovers. W. Metcalfe; University of Vermont