Elgar’s Variations are my Everest,
Elevating song to the starry
heights,
Lasting music by one of England
Guarded by ciphers, a trove of insights,
A labyrinth of dark enigmas
unguessed,
Rousing strains of love’s
labors lost, now found,
Solved by one willing to endure the test;
Jesus spoke in 'dark sayings' to confound,
Solved by one willing to endure the test;
Jesus spoke in 'dark sayings' to confound,
Unveiling truth not to the
rich and wise,
But rather to fools, the
poor, and the lame,
In music Elgar mimics that disguise,
Lifting up in secret his
Savior’s name,
Enduring to the end he ran
his race,
Robert Wayne Padgett
My fiftieth post is in celebration of the fact this blog is on the verge of a new milestone: 50,000 page views. This number is understated as some of my posts range between ten to forty pages in length, yet one view is counted only as a single page. A more conservative estimate of actual page views is ten to fifteen times greater, or upwards of 750,000 page views. Considering the subject is something as esoteric as a British symphony by Edward Elgar, this is by no means a small feat. A Google search of ‘Elgar enigma solution’ lists my blog as the number one search result, beating out popular sites like Wikipedia and Answers.com. This favorable condition has been the case for over six months, so I must be onto something.
On the third of
February 2009 I was fortunate enough to discover the covert Principal Theme to Elgar’s
‘Enigma’ Variations:
Ein feste Burg by Martin Luther. This extraordinary
event took place in my hometown of Pacific Grove
precisely on the bicentennial of Felix Mendelssohn’s
birth, something I was blissfully unaware of at the time. It was also 110 years
after the completion of the Variations in February 1899, and 75 years following
Elgar’s death in February 1934. The passage of 75 years after an event is known
in the United States
The credit
for this marvelous discovery belongs to my heavenly
Father who graciously answered my fervent prayer, blessing me with the wisdom
and endurance needed to surmount the seemingly insurmountable. As this was His
gift, I have not sought to profit from it in any way. On the contrary, I prefer
to emulate Elgar’s excellent example, for the Variations were his first major noncommissioned work. I seek no reward
in this lifetime, but prefer to collect my treasure
in the next. I suspect Elgar’s motivations in 1898-99 were similar, preferring
to follow the great
commission rather than toil for one from a publisher hungry for trifles rather than triumphs. Jesus told his followers to do their good works in secret to assure they are not recognized and rewarded by the world, but rather by our heavenly Father.
My prolonged
study of the Enigma Variations has produced a number of fascinating finds, and
some of the more notable are described below:
Why was I chosen, of all
people, to make these unprecedented discoveries? I never attended conservatory,
but then neither did Elgar. On closer analysis, a comparison of Elgar’s life history
with my own produces a lengthy list of similar life experiences:
- The son of a musician father who “who hated all religions”[1]
- The son of a devout Christian mother who taught him to revere God and the arts
- The fourth child born to his parents
- A husband and father
- A Christian
- A concert violinist
- A piano accompanist
- An instructor of violin, viola and piano
- A violin student of a respected teacher
- A Self-taught composer
- An enthusiast for golfing, kite flying, bicycling, and experimenting in a home laboratory
- A law student in his youth
- Employed for a few years in an asylum as a musician
- Planning to attend conservatory but could not afford to do so
- An ardent admirer of Bach, Mendelssohn and Wagner
- A Native English speaker
- Able to read, write and speak German
- An award winning composer
- Considered an outsider because of his faith, profession and class
- Suspicious of career academics
- Fascinated by puns, anagrams, and cryptograms
These similar life experiences have undoubtedly helped in my quest for answers. The scripture
says, “God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise.” In my case
the Lord could not have chosen a more foolish messenger from the perspective of
secular academia. In their eyes I am a dithering fool, and they have told me so in no
uncertain terms. The scripture also assures us that “whatever is hidden is meant to
be disclosed, and whatever is concealed is meant to be brought out into the
open.”[2] No
matter how hard the world strives to hide the truth, it eventually gets out. In
the case of Elgar’s Enigma Variations, the waiting took 110 years, and now the
answers are finally here.
[1] McVeagh,
D. (2007), Elgar the Music Maker. Rochester , New
York
[2] Mark
4:22 NIV
1 comments:
Hello DAD. I LOVE THE SONG TAKE MY HAND. Soli Deo GLORIA
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