Elgar, Enigma, and Easter
While my first choice for classical music on Easter will always be Handel’s Messiah, there are a few other wondrous, utterly memorable pieces that conjure up the same rush of powerful spirituality, a sense of Easter Sunday grandeur. There’s the Gustav Holst choral piece I’ve sung in choirs, a gorgeous SATB arrangement of “Three Days,” but let’s save that for next year. Because Elgar’s Enigma Variations contains a piece (“Nimrod”) that is so stirring, so spine-tingling in its glorious climaxing moment, you can feel the power of the divine surging through you, all around you. Most decidedly “death has been conquered; arise and go forth” music.
I remember falling in love with this piece of music, years back. The thunderbolt of it struck me as I sat in my car in a parking lot that was situated on a hill and looked out onto the gently rolling green foothills. Beyond them, a slightly bluish-green, were the craggy, redwood-studded Santa Cruz Mountains, not yet our home at that time, but beckoning, even then. It was springtime, approaching Easter. I’d turned off the car engine but was reluctant to leave the beautiful music, that I’d listened to several times prior, but never with this kind of attention, the way it seemed to be in sync with the beautiful scenery. And as the music built in intensity, such a rush of emotion swept over me, it would have tipped me over if I hadn’t been sitting. You know how it is, when a piece of music stirs your soul so much it hurts? It brings tears flowing up and out, only it’s a good pain, an absolutely beautiful kind. Even the tears feel mystical, other-worldly, like self-generated baptismal waters. I listened to that piece through, tears streaming out of me, and at its conclusion, I sat back, dazed, spent, filled with both gravity and joy. Wow, was all I could think. That’s some music.
Easter likely hadn’t been on Elgar’s mind when he wrote his Enigma Variations. It was more of a game, of sorts, these fourteen variations on a theme, with each variation representing one of his friends or a situation in some way. “Nimrod” is Variation no. 9. Its inspiration, Augustus Jaeger, was a music editor and a good friend of Elgar’s. He was the best sort of friend a composer could have: He advised Elgar and wasn’t afraid to severely criticize him, if necessary. Elgar appreciated and respected the man and his words. Jaeger is German for “hunter,” and Nimrod is a Biblical character (great-grandson of Noah) referred to as “a mighty hunter before the Lord.” This, if you ask me, is a bit of a stretch in having a piece named after you, but I guess that’s the enigma part of the equation. Anyway, here’s the part that’s so powerful to me, and actually, I only learned this bit recently. Jaeger became the one to encourage him as an artist when he was at his lowest, helping him rise above setbacks, bouts of depression, discouragement. The deliverer of the stern criticism was precisely the person who could pull Elgar up from the depths of artistic despair.
Wow. No wonder the piece sounds like it does. It’s packed with the intensity of being on the teetering edge of despair, of hope. And then this powerful thing rises up, and up, and up, and the music grows in volume and the brass section ramps it up, and wow. It’s like God is speaking. Tell me what you think, dear reader.