THEME
The theme, or the “Enigma,” is an andante, G minor, 4-4, of a melancholy nature, with a halting and sighing melody. A few measures of musical notation would show more clearly the nature of the following variations than any verbal description, however graphic.
Elgar wrote to the late August Johannes Jaeger that he had composed thirteen variations, but, yielding to superstition, he had called the finale the fourteenth.