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Enigma Variations.
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Variations is a striking example of a primitive form that has proved imperishable. Sir Hubert Parry has pointed out that the fundamental idea of variations in instrumental music is co-ordinate with the _canto fermo_ and counterpoint of the early choral composers. Each system resulted from an attempt at giving form and unity to a composition by repeating a theme over and over again, each time in some new aspect, or with fresh ornamentation; though the effect obtained by winding ingenious counterpoint for other voices about an unchanging _canto fermo_ is, of course, very different from the tricking out of the melody itself. In choral music the _canto fermo_ system almost died out when maturer principles of structure were discovered; but variation-form has never fallen into disuse at any period since its invention. It has been used by all the great masters, and by many of them as a vehicle for great and splendid ideas. General progress from the mechanical to the imaginative marks the successive stages through which the form has passed. One great reason for its vitality is that it admits of treatment in every possible style. Variations may be melodic, or contrapuntal, or harmonic. A superficial composer can make them by simply worrying his theme, a profound composer by developing the musical ideas that are in it. Bach's were mainly contrapuntal, Mozart's mainly melodic--one may even say melismatic--and Beethoven made variations of every kind, in his later works obtaining results of undreamed-of grandeur from the form. But the later Beethoven has never really been followed by any mortal in the austere and wonderful path that he struck out for himself, though Brahms and others have obtained a few hints from him. The originator of modern romantic variations was Schumann, whose
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Etudes Symphoniques revealed a fresh source of life in the form, that has proved less austerely inaccessible than Beethoven's; Brahms, Tchaïkovsky, and many others having obviously derived inspiration from it. Mr. Elgar stands in a peculiar relation to the modern masters of variation-form. He seems to be much preoccupied with the curious idea of musical portraiture, which, again, owes its existence to Schumann. The miniature of Chopin occurring in Schumann's
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Carnaval was the first, and perhaps remains to this day the best, example in its kind, and the sketch of Mendelssohn forming No. 24 of the same composer's
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Album for the Young is also a recognisable piece of musical portraiture. Mr. Elgar has carried out the idea in an extended scale in these variations. His theme, which he calls
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has no eccentricity. It is a rather march-like strain in regular form, having three sections, the last of which is a repetition of the first, with fresh harmony and instrumentation. There are nominally fourteen variations;--including the finale, actually thirteen, for No. 10, described as intermezzo, is not a variation. Each of the variations, and the intermezzo, bears initials, or a nickname, which are commonly assumed to represent the composer's friends. Why any such thing should be assumed we do not know. It is both possible and allowable to portray persons who are not one's friends, and some of Mr. Elgar's portraits seem to us extremely severe and satirical. One of the early numbers, in particular, gives a vivid impression of a very unsympathetic personality, garrulous, querulous, trivial, meanly egotistic, and rather ape-like. The composer does well to let the identity of the original remain shrouded in mystery. The variations are grouped according to the usual principles of contrast, and they are all extremely effective. However much the composer may call his theme an enigma--Berlioz called his variation-theme in an early symphony _idée fixe_--one can scarcely escape the impression that it represents the temperament of the artist, through which he sees his subjects; for that, and nothing else, is what forms the connecting link between any series of portraits by the same hand. Wonderful ingenuity is shown in varying the relation in which the theme stands to the musical picture. During the first part of the work, down to the end of the sixth variation, the attitude of the audience seemed rather reserved. But a change began to be noticeable at the seventh variation, called
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Troyte, an impetuous presto movement that shows a hitherto unsuspected kind of energy. Nor did the attention flag at all during the noble and serene harmonies of the ensuing Allegretto. The richly-organised
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Nimrod, forming No. 9, leads to the dainty and tripping
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Dorabella Intermezzo, which has no connection with the theme. The eleventh variation, headed
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G. R. S., is another demonstration of abundant vigour, and the following
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B. G. N. has for leading feature a fine lyrical melody for 'cello. No. 13 obviously has reference to someone on a sea voyage, the
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theme from Mendelssohn's
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Meeresstille overture being heard amid delicate suggestions of distant sea sound. In the very extended finale there is some powerful polyphonic writing, and the movement ends with a repetition of the theme in augmentation, forcibly declaimed by the heavy brass to the accompaniment of the full orchestra. The audience seemed rather astonished that a work by a British composer should have had other than a petrifying effect upon them. They applauded with the energy that the composer's imaginative power and masterly handling of the orchestra deserve. Dr. Richter signalled to Mr. Elgar, who was seated among the audience, and he thereupon mounted the stage and received an enthusiastic greeting from the public. The striking success of this composition reminds us of the following passage occurring at the end of an article by Sir Hubert Parry written some years ago:--
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It is even possible that, after all its long history, the variation still affords one of the most favourable opportunities for the exercise of their genius by composers of the future.
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Cockaigne.
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still find themselves, as regards understanding the poetic import of a musical work. On two occasions in recent years a work full of slaughter and frenzy, of barbarous revelry and sensuality, of glittering and blaring pageantry, and ending with annihilation--a work the powerful appeal of which lies precisely in the fact that it is the most powerful existing expression in music of everything most un-Christian and anti-Catholic--has been performed without public protest in a British Cathedral. We here refer, of course, to the
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Symphonie Pathétique. Dr. Elgar is another composer whose music means something; but what chance is there for us to understand him? One quails before the task of discussing in a concert notice all the questions to which such a work as the
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Cockaigne overture gives rise. First let us state, without stopping to give reasons, that we think it worth hearing and worth studying. If any previously existing overture is to be mentioned in order to indicate the type to which
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Cockaigne belongs, it must obviously be
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Meistersinger. The humorous element is somewhat more prominent than in
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Meistersinger, and the general tone and colouring of the two works are utterly dissimilar. But that the composer of
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Cockaigne had
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Meistersinger in mind is rendered practically certain by one particular point--the use of a Londoner theme and of the same theme in diminution for the youthful Londoner, in exact analogy with Wagner's symbols for the Meistersingers and the apprentices. Again the opening bustle, giving way to a love-scene, suggests
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Meistersinger, and so does the polyphonic elaboration of the middle part. But there is a great difference between following Wagner's procedure and borrowing his musical ideas. To some slight extent in the E flat section, and more particularly in the harmony thereof, we find the Wagner flavour. For the rest, while the procedure seems at any rate to be based on Wagner's, we find the materials used and the character of the artistic result achieved to be entirely different from Wagner's. There are seven musical elements in
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Cockaigne, the significance of which may be roughly indicated as follows:--(1) Bustle of the streets; (2) a virile personal note; (3) companionship and interchange of ideas between two sweethearts; (4) pert children playing their pranks; (5) military band episode; (6) impressions on passing from the street into a church; (7) new phases of street-bustle music. Musical symbols of very considerable plastic force are invented for these things, and are woven into a powerful and entertaining tone-picture with that mastery of the orchestra which no one can now refuse to recognise in Dr. Elgar. He always works with definite lines, and does not seem to care much for those atmospheric effects in which certain moderns, such as Richard Strauss, are so strong. The music has a far wider range of ideas and emotions than would be possible in a poem occupying the same time in delivery. It gives us impressions of London by day and by night, impressions that are partly realistic and partly antiquarian, following the flight of the imagination with absolute freedom, forming a sort of musical parallel to Henley's
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London Voluntaries.