Variation XII B.G.N. with "Ein feste Burg"

Variation XII from Elgar's 'Enigma' Variations is performed on piano while "Ein feste Burg" is played through and over it on clarinet. This demonstration furnishes further proof the unstated Principal Theme to the Enigma Variations is "Ein feste Burg" (A Mighty Fortress) by Martin Luther. To learn more about this historic discovery, visit enigmathemeunmasked.blogspot.com

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Elgar
• Enigma Variations
• Solution
• Ein feste Burg
• Martin Luther
• Bach
• Raff
• Listz
• Meyerbeer
• Wagner

[Sirpadgett]

Dear mtv565:

Thank you for your comments. I am still working on the book and hope to have it ready by late 2011 or early 2012. I have not yet heard from any publishers, but would welcome their interest in my project. If no publisher steps forward, I will simply self-publish.

[TheKlaus1955]

Too clever by half. The solution to the "Enigma" puzzle can't be quite this thin or difficult, or - most of all - so decidely "Un-British."

[Sirpadgett]

@TheKlaus1955

Elgar was a committed disciple of the German school of composition, and among his favorite composers were Bach, Schumann, Mendelssohn and Wagner. The one thing these German composers have in common is to quote "Ein feste Burg" in their music. For Elgar to emulate these masters in this way may appear Un-British, but it is no more Un-British than George Frideric Handel or Johann Christian Bach.

[Sirpadgett]

@TheKlaus1955

It is deeply ironic that you use the word “thin” in describing my melodic solution, for that is fundamentally how Elgar described the link between the unstated Principal Theme and the Variations. In the original 1899 program note he said, "...I warn you that the connexion between the Variations and the Theme is often of the slightest texture..." One definition of the word "slight" is thin.

[mtv565]

@Sirpadgett Please ship some copies to Singapore. Thanks.

[mtv565]

Sorry, that was your midi that I heard... not video.

[mtv565]

I read about your solution and heard your videos a few years back and I remember you wrote a book on this was in preparation and would be ready in 2011. Let me know when it would be published. Amazing how the EFB theme blends in so perfectly with the music!