Hunting for Hidden Friends in Elgar's Enigma Variations: Variation IX "Nimrod"
The Listen Guide
Variations on an Original Theme, Op. 36
Welcome, I'm Edward Elgar, and this is the listen guide to Enigma Variations: Variation IX "Nimrod". Here you'll learn to follow how this slow melody grows from a whisper into a full, solemn sound, which is why it's played every year at the Cenotaph in Whitehall. Teaching you to recognize our pieces whenever you hear them is something my fellow composers and I do here too, and you can give the Trainer a go .
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Follow the Strings, Then Wait for the Crowd
Start by listening to the strings, because they carry the melody and it never leaves them for long. Other instruments, such as the horns and the woodwinds, slip in later and add a warm cushion underneath, like extra people quietly joining a hushed conversation. You don't need to know a single note name, because the real story is told by how loud and how full the sound becomes. Just follow the tune as it climbs and then falls back, and you're already listening the way I hoped you would.Why a Hunter Gave Me a Name
I called this variation "Nimrod" after my friend August Jaeger, who worked as a music editor at Novello & Co. Nimrod is the mighty hunter of the Old Testament, and Jäger happens to be the German word for hunter, so the name is a pun on his surname. It isn't a plain portrait of his character, though, since I always described it as the story of something that happened, which was our talk about Beethoven's slow movements. That is why the music sounds less like a description of a man and more like a conversation I have never forgotten.No Rulebook, Just a Shape
Choosing a form for this piece turned out to be easier than you'd expect, because it isn't a sonata or a rondo, just one variation in a larger set that portrays my friends. It works as a single slow arc, with a quiet beginning, a long climb and a gentle return. I'll call those three parts sections, and you can feel each one without any training at all. Let me walk you through them one at a time.Section 1: A Whisper That Asks You to Lean In
The music opens very quietly and at a slow pace, as if the players are afraid of waking someone. The mood is private and a little sad, the sound of a person thinking before speaking. This is where my memory of Jaeger and Beethoven sits closest to the surface. Don't wait for anything to happen yet, because the whole point is to settle into the stillness.Section 2: The Long Climb Without Any Hurry
From that hush the melody begins to rise, and more and more instruments gather around it. The pace stays unhurried, yet the feeling grows because the harmony warms and opens up with each step. This is the stretch where encouragement turns into something close to certainty, the way a friend's kind words can lift you out of a low mood. If you only have time to notice one thing, notice how patiently the sound is built.Section 3: The Peak and the Long Exhale
The music reaches its fullest and most powerful moment here, and the Berlin Philharmonic's programme note even calls this variation the emotional centre of the whole work. Then the sound relaxes and sinks back toward the stillness it came from, leaving the calm of someone who has said everything they meant to say. Perhaps that is why "Nimrod" is so often played at funerals and memorial services, and why it is always heard at the Cenotaph in Whitehall during the annual National Service of Remembrance. I felt it was fitting to quote it myself in my 1912 choral work The Music Makers.Your Turn to Press Play
Now I invite you to listen to "Nimrod" yourself, ideally somewhere quiet where nobody will interrupt. Keep in mind the three sections, the quiet beginning, the patient climb and the long exhale, and let the music carry you through them. Jaeger was a stern critic, and after he died I wrote that his place had been occupied but never filled, so I hope you hear a little of that friendship in every bar. I felt something close to wonder when I wrote it, and I hope you feel the same.---
Before you go, I'd like to ask you something: did you enjoy getting to know "Nimrod" through this listen guide? I hope the slow, quiet climb of the strings stays with you for a while, perhaps next time you hear it when you least expect it. I wrote this music for a friend who once persuaded me not to give up, and it still feels to me like a conversation that never quite ended. There is a good deal more to discover about Enigma Variations: Variation IX "Nimrod", and each new listening tends to show you something you missed before. If you'd like to keep exploring, please click on the links provided and carry on from here. I'd be glad to have you along for the next step.