The Enigma Variations, Op. 36 is a symphonic work by Edward Elgar, based on a musical cryptogram which repeats and varies over 14 times. In fact, the suggestive name of the composition is a reference to a secret theme that is hidden throughout the piece without being played. According to Elgar himself, the Variations are a counterpoint to this mysterious theme. Over time, musicologists enjoyed tracing down this ghost of a melody: some recognised the hymn God save the queen or else Auld Lang Syne; others saw Mozart’s Symphony “Prague”; the lexicographer Hans Westgeest detected the second movement of Beethoven’s Sonata “Pathétique”; while recently, the composer Marc Geretto has suggested the famous ringtone of the Big Ben Bell Tower…  The Enigma Variations, therefore, continue to fascinate due to their nature as  an “open work” (U. Eco), as if they were setting a challenge to their public…

Просмотреть записи Энигма-вариации, Op. 36

Enjoy Elgar’s Enigma Variations, Op. 36 streaming on medici.tv! 

medici.tv is the best online platform for live streaming Elgar’s Enigma Variations, offering you a VIP ticket to the most famous productions with world-class artists captured in the best audio quality and HD video. As a musical riddle, Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations launched a challenge to their public with music built around a ghost theme which fascinated musicologists from all over the world. Structured in 14 variations around the same theme, this composition by Elgar is an insistent repetition of a fixed idea skilfully concealed by its author. What do you think? What is hiding in Elgar’s Enigma Variations, Op. 36? 

A seat at the greatest music venues to watch Elgar’s Enigma Variations, Op. 36

A selection of our live streamed performances and recordings of Enigma Variations are available for free to all registered users and the rest can be unlocked with a subscription. Our live video events stream right to your living room from the most famous opera houses, and you can watch them on your biggest screens with AirPlay, Chromecast, and our new Roku app! Come and discover the most captivating compositions by Elgar, including the Enigma Variations, conducted by directors like Leonard Bernstein, Daniel Barenboim, and Sir Georg Solti

The greatest artists in the world perform Elgar’s Enigma Variations, Op. 36 on medici.tv, your #1 classical music streaming channel

The 14 variations of the Enigma Variations are a portrait in music of the people close to its author, and eventually, of Elgar himself. The composer declares it as a work dedicated “to my friends pictured within.” The Variations start with his wife, Caroline Alice Elgar, who, according to the legend, might have inspired the composition of the work while whistling a short melody of four notes returning home. Here follows a description of Elgar’s cultural milieu, as if in spite of the differences between those people, there was something impenetrable uniting them all. Then, the Enigma Variations reveal their mystery, hidden, and yet exposed to the view of all: like a loveletter, they talk about the intimate complicity that unites all men. And for good reason, the famous writer André Aciman refers to the Enigma Variations in the title of one of his books. On the back cover, you can read the following phrase: “We may not know what we want. We may remain enigmas to ourselves and to others. But sooner or later we discover who we've always known we were.”