Editing Enigma Variations (section)

===Counterpoints===
Solutions in this category suggest a well-known tune which (in the proponent's view) forms a counterpoint to the theme of the ''Variations''.

*After Elgar's death in 1934 Richard Powell (husband of Dorabella) published a solution proposing ''[[Auld Lang Syne]]'' as the countermelody.<ref>Powell, Richard C., "Elgar's Enigma", ''[[Music & Letters]]'', vol. 15 (July 1934), p. 203; quoted in {{harvnb|Portnoy|1985}}.</ref> This theory has been elaborated by [[Roger Fiske]],<ref>Fiske, Roger, "The Enigma: A Solution", ''The Musical Times'', vol. 110 (November 1969), 1124, quoted in {{harvnb|Portnoy|1985}}.</ref> [[Eric Sams]]<ref>Sams, Eric, "Variations on an Original Theme (Enigma)", ''The Musical Times'', vol. 111 (March 1970); quoted in {{harvnb|Portnoy|1985}}.</ref> and Derek Hudson.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Hudson|first=Derek|title=Elgar's Enigma: the Trail of the Evidence|journal=[[The Musical Times]]|year=1984|volume=125|issue=1701|pages=636–9|doi=10.2307/962081|jstor=962081}}</ref> Elgar himself, however, is on record as stating "''Auld Lang Syne'' won't do".<ref name=westrup>Westrup, J. A., [https://www.jstor.org/stable/766020 "Elgar's Enigma"], ''Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association, 86th Sess. (1959–1960)'', pp. 79–97, Taylor & Francis for the Royal Musical Association, accessed 2 December 2010 {{subscription required}}</ref> [[Ernest Tomlinson]] revived the idea in 1976, providing his "proof" in the form of his set of variations ''[[Fantasia on Auld Lang Syne]]''.<ref name=g>Grant, M.J (2021). ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=w8tUEAAAQBAJ&dq=Fantasia+on+Auld+Lang+Syne+Tomlinson&pg=PT134 Auld Lang Syne: A Song and its Culture]'', end of Section 7.3</ref>
*Reviewing published Enigma solutions in 1939, [[Ernest Newman]] failed to identify any that met what he considered to be the required musical standard.<ref name=Newman1939>
{{bulleted list|
{{cite news|last=Newman |first=Ernest |date=16 April 1939 |newspaper = The Sunday Times |location = London |department = The World of Music |title=Elgar and his Variations: What was the "Enigma"? |page=5 |issue=((6,053)) |ref=none}} |
{{cite news|last=Newman |first=Ernest |date=23 April 1939 |newspaper = The Sunday Times |location = London |department = The World of Music |title=Elgar and his Enigma—II: An Innocent Mystification |page=5 |issue=((6,054)) |ref=none}} |
{{cite news|last=Newman |first=Ernest |date=30 April 1939 |newspaper = The Sunday Times |location = London |department = The World of Music |title=Elgar and his Enigma—III: Some Snags |page=5 |issue=((6,055)) |ref=none}} |
{{cite news|last=Newman |first=Ernest |date=7 May 1939 |newspaper = The Sunday Times |location = London |department = The World of Music |title=Elgar and his Enigma—IV |page=7 |issue=((6,056)) |ref=none}}}}</ref>
*A competition organized by the American magazine ''The Saturday Review'' in 1953 yielded one proposed counterpoint – the aria ''Una bella serenata'' from Mozart's ''[[Così fan tutte]]'' (transposed to the minor key).<ref name=SatRev2>{{cite journal|title=What is the Enigma?|journal=Saturday Review|date=30 May 1953}}</ref>
*In 1993 [[Brian Trowell]], surmising that Elgar conceived the theme in E minor, proposed a simple counterpoint consisting of repeated semibreve E's doubled at the octave – a device occasionally used by Elgar as a signature, possibly due to his name starting with E.<ref>Trowell, B. ''Edward Elgar: Music and Literature'' in {{harvnb|Monk|1993|p=307}}</ref>
*In 1999 Julian Rushton{{sfn|Rushton|1999|pp=71–73}} reviewed solutions based on counterpoints with melodies including ''[[Home! Sweet Home!|Home, Sweet Home]]'', ''[[The Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond|Loch Lomond]]'', a theme from Brahms's fourth symphony, the ''Meditation'' from Elgar's oratorio ''The Light of Life''<ref>{{cite journal|last=Rollet|first=J. M. |title=New Light on Elgar's Enigma |journal=Elgar Society Journal|date=November 1997|volume=10|issue=3}}</ref> and [[God Save the Queen]] – the last being Troyte Griffith's suggestion from 1924, which Elgar had dismissed with the words "Of course not, but it is so well-known that it is extraordinary no-one has found it".<ref name=Newman1939 />
*In 2009, composer Robert Padgett<ref>{{cite web |url=http://enigmathemeunmasked.blogspot.com/2016/04/evidence-for-ein-feste-burg-as-covert.html |title=Evidence for "Ein feste Burg" as the Covert Theme to Elgar's Enigma Variations |date= 10 April 2016 |author=Padgett, Robert}}</ref> proposed [[Martin Luther|Martin Luther's]] "[[Ein feste Burg]]" as a solution, which was later described as "[lying] at the bottom of a rabbit hole of anagrams, cryptography, the poet [[Henry Wadsworth Longfellow|Longfellow]], the composer [[Mendelssohn]], the [[Shroud of Turin]], and [[Jesus]], all of which he believes he found hiding in plain sight in the music."<ref>{{cite magazine |url=https://newrepublic.com/article/139816/breaking-elgars-enigma | title=Breaking Elgar's Enigma |magazine=New Republic |date=1 February 2017 |author=Estrin, Daniel}}</ref>
*In 2019, Ed Newton-Rex<ref>{{cite web |url=https://medium.com/world-of-music/pergolesis-stabat-mater-the-solution-to-elgar-s-enigma-variations-5f1f7dd2158a |title=Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater: the solution to Elgar’s Enigma Variations? |date= 26 April 2019 |author=Newton-Rex, Ed}}</ref> proposed [[Giovanni Battista Pergolesi|Pergolesi's]] ''[[Stabat Mater (Pergolesi)|Stabat Mater]]'' as a solution, pointing to the close contrapuntal fit between this and the Enigma theme.<ref>Roberts, Maddy Shaw: [https://www.classicfm.com/composers/elgar/news/young-composer-solves-enigma/ Young composer "solves" Elgar's Enigma – and it's pretty convincing.] [[Classic FM (UK)|Classic FM]], 1 May 2019</ref><ref>Moore, Matthew: [https://www.thetimes.com/uk/history/article/composer-ed-newton-rex-solves-elgar-enigma-rnq98wf6x Composer Ed Newton-Rex ‘solves’ Elgar enigma] [[The Times]], 27 April 2019</ref> In a 2025 paper, he argued that the only criteria the hidden tune need meet are that it should fit with the Enigma theme, that it should have been well-known at the time, and that it should not have been unknown to Dora Penny; and that the ''Stabat Mater'' meets these.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://ed.newtonrex.com/enigma |title=Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater: A Solution to Elgar’s Enigma |date= May 2025 |author=Newton-Rex, Ed |access-date=2025-05-07}}</ref>
*In 2021, architectural acoustician Zackery Belanger proposed Elgar's own "[[Like to the Damask Rose]]" as a solution, claiming that the fourteen deaths described in the song align with the fourteen variations. Belanger arrived at this conclusion in his attempt to solve Elgar's [[Dorabella Cipher]], which he proposes has a rose-shaped key assembled from the cipher's symbols.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Belanger |first=Zackery |date=2025-03-30 |title=An Enigma, a Cipher, and a Rose |url=https://www.dearcipher.space/enigma |access-date=2024-09-03 |website=Dear Cipher |language=en}}</ref>

A few more solutions of this type have been published in recent years. In the following three examples the counterpoints involve complete renditions of both the Enigma theme and the proposed "larger theme", and the associated texts have obvious "dark" connotations.

*In his book on the ''Variations'' Patrick Turner advanced a solution based on a counterpoint with a minor key version the nursery rhyme ''[[Twinkle, twinkle, little star]]''.<ref>{{harvnb|Turner|2007|pp=111–116}} (reviewed in [http://elgar.org/elgarsoc/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Vol.11-No.1-March-1999-Compressed.pdf The Elgar Society Journal, March 1999] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150201022257/http://elgar.org/elgarsoc/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Vol.11-No.1-March-1999-Compressed.pdf |date=1 February 2015 }}).</ref>
*Clive McClelland has proposed a counterpoint with [[Sabine Baring-Gould]]'s tune for the hymn ''Now the Day Is Over'' (also transposed to the minor).<ref>{{cite journal|last=McClelland|first=Clive|title= Shadows of the evening: new light on Elgar's "dark saying"|journal=The Musical Times |year=2007|volume=148|issue=1901|pages=43–48|doi=10.2307/25434495|jstor=25434495}}</ref>
*''[[Tunes for Archbishop Parker's Psalter|Tallis's canon]]'', the tune for the hymn ''Glory to Thee, my God, this night'', features as a [[cantus firmus]] in a solution which interprets the Enigma as a [[Canon (music)#Puzzle canon|puzzle canon]]. This reading is suggested by the words "for fuga", which appear among Elgar's annotations to his sketch of the theme.<ref>[http://elgar.org/elgarsoc/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Vol.-18-No.-1-April-2013-Compressed.pdf {{cite journal|last=Gough|first=Martin |title=Variations on a Canonical Theme – Elgar and the Enigmatic Tradition|journal=Elgar Society Journal|date=April 2013|volume=18|issue=1|ref=none}} ]</ref>

Another theory has been published in 2007 by Hans Westgeest.<ref>"The most plausible theory so far is by Hans Westgeest. He demonstrates that the theme has the same contours as the melody from the second movement of Beethoven's Sonata Pathétique. The link can indeed be demonstrated and the connection with the anecdote of Augustus Jaeger gives the link credibility." (transl.) Prof. Dr. Francis Maes (University Ghent). [https://www.concertgebouw.be/media/eventpage/programmeBook/180603_bbcscottishsymphonyorchestra_lr.pdf Program note] Concertgebouw Brugge (BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, cond. Martyn Brabbins, 3 June 2018).</ref> He has argued that the real theme of the work consists of only nine notes: G–E{{music|flat}}–A{{music|flat}}–F–B{{music|flat}}–F–F–A{{music|flat}}–G.<ref>See {{harvnb|Westgeest|2007}}. The book has been reviewed in the ''Elgar Society Journal'', vol. 15, no. 5 (July 2008), pp. 37–39, and no. 6 (November 2008), p. 64.</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.hanswestgeest.nl/uk_elgarsenigma.html |title=Hans Westgeest – Biografie |publisher=Hanswestgeest.nl |access-date=7 September 2012}}</ref> The rhythm of this theme (in {{music|time|4|4}} time, with a crotchet rest on the first beat of each bar) is based on the rhythm of Edward Elgar's own name ("Edward Elgar": short-short-long-long, then reversed long-long-short-short and a final note). Elgar meaningfully composed this short "Elgar theme" as a countermelody to the beginning of the hidden "principal Theme" of the piece, i.e. the theme of the slow movement of Beethoven's ''[[Piano Sonata No. 8 (Beethoven)|Pathétique]]'' sonata, a melody which indeed is "larger" and "well-known".
[[File:Music_example.gif|thumb|right|482x145px|alt=Music Example.|The opening notes of the Beethoven theme (top) are repeated in the "Elgar theme" (bottom).]]

When the two themes are combined each note of (the first part of) the Beethoven theme is followed by the same note in the Elgar theme. So musically Elgar "follows" Beethoven closely, as Jaeger told him to do (see above, Var. IX) and, by doing so, in the vigorous, optimistic Finale the artist triumphs over his sadness and loneliness, expressed in the minor melody from the beginning. The whole piece is based on this "Elgar theme", in which the Beethoven theme is hidden (and so the latter "goes through and over the whole set, but is not played"). Dora Penny could not solve the enigma. Elgar had expected she would: "I'm surprised. I thought that you of all people would guess it." Even later she could not when Elgar had told her in private about the Beethoven story and the ''[[Piano Sonata No. 8 (Beethoven)|Pathétique]]'' theme behind the Jaeger/Nimrod-variation (see above, Var. IX) because she did not see the connection between this and the enigma.