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Thursday, April 29, 2021

Elgar's Enigma Theme's Encrypted Title

During railway journeys amuses himself with cryptograms; solved one by John Holt Schooling who defied the world to unravel his mystery.
Robert J. Buckley in his 1905 biography of Sir Edward Elgar

The late romantic composer Edward Elgar excelled in cryptography, the science of coding and decoding secret messages. His obsession with that esoteric discipline merits an entire chapter in Craig P. Bauer’s book Unsolved! Bauer devotes much of the third chapter to Elgar’s brilliant decryption of an allegedly insoluble Nihilist cipher presented by John Holt Schooling in an April 1896 issue of The Pall Mall Magazine. Elgar was so gratified by his solution to Schooling’s purportedly impenetrable code that he specifically mentions it in his first biography released in 1905 by Robert J. Buckley.
Elgar painted his decryption in black paint on a wooden box, an appropriate medium considering that another name for the Polybius cipher is a box cipher. His methodical solution is summarized on a set of nine index cards. On the sixth card, Elgar likens the task of cracking Schooling’s cipher to “. . . working (in the dark).” This confirms Elgar used the word “dark” as a synonym for a cipher.


This parenthetical remark is significant as he employs that same language in the original 1899 program note to characterize his eponymous Enigma Theme. It is an oft-cited passage that deserves revisiting as Elgar lays the groundwork for his tripartite riddle:
The Enigma I will not explain – its ‘dark saying’ must be left unguessed, and I warn you that the connexion between the Variations and the Theme is often of the slightest texture; further, through and over the whole set another and larger theme ‘goes’, but is not played…So the principal Theme never appears, even as in some later dramas – e.g., Maeterlinck’s ‘L’Intruse’ and ‘Les sept Princesses’ – the chief character is never on the stage.
Elgar also uses the words dark and secret interchangeably in a letter to August Jaeger penned on February 5, 1900. He wrote, “Well—I can’t help it but I hate continually saying ‘Keep it dark’—‘a dead secret’—& so forth.” One of the definitions for dark is “secret,” and a saying is a series of words that form a coherent phrase or adage. Elgar’s odd expression — “dark saying” — is coded language for a code. In his oblique manner, Elgar hints there is a secret message enciphered in the Enigma Theme.
A compulsion for cryptography is a reigning facet of Elgar’s psychological profile. A decade of systematic analysis of the Enigma Variations has netted over ninety cryptograms in diverse formats that encode a set of mutually consistent and complementary solutions. Although this figure may seem astronomical, it is entirely consistent with Elgar’s fascination with ciphers. More significantly, their solutions provide definitive answers to the core questions posed by the Enigma Variations. What is the secret melody to which the Enigma Theme is a counterpoint and serves as the melodic foundation for the ensuing movements? Answer: Ein feste Burg (A Mighty Fortress) by the German protestant reformer Martin Luther. What is Elgar’s “dark saying” concealed within the Enigma Theme? Answer: A musical Polybius cipher situated in the opening six bars. Who is the secret friend and inspiration behind Variation XIII? Answer: Jesus Christ, the Savior of Elgar’s Roman Catholic faith.
The initials of Elgar’s secret friend are transparently encoded by the Roman numerals of Variation XIII using an elementary number-to-letter key (1 = a, 2 = b, 3 = c, etc.). “X” is the Roman numeral for ten. The tenth letter of the alphabet is J. “III” represents three, and the third letter is C. This cryptanalysis shows that the Roman numerals XIII are a coded form of “JC,” the initials for Jesus Christ. This is not an isolated instance of this encipherment technique in the Enigma Variations. Elgar uses the same number-to-letter key to encode August Jaeger’s initials in Variation IX (Nimrod). “I” is the Roman numeral for one. The first letter of the alphabet is A. “X” stands for ten, and the tenth letter is J.
With the secret friend’s initials thinly disguised by the Roman numerals of Variation XIII, what could be the significance of its cryptic title (***) consisting of three asterisks? That question was resolved in July 2013 by the discovery of the Letters Cluster Cipher, a cryptogram that revealed the three asterisks represent the initials of Elgar’s mysterious missing melody. Those absent initials are encoded by the first letters from the titles of the adjoining movements: Variations XII (B. G. N.) and XIV (E. D. U., and Finale). These first letters are an acrostic anagram of “EFB,” the initials for Ein feste Burg. Elgar deftly frames the question posed by the three asterisks with the answer hidden in plain sight.


Elgar’s sketches document five different orderings of the movements for the Enigma Variations. The discovery of the Letters Cluster Cipher verifies these divergent lists were generated to construct that particular cryptogram. This prospect eluded scholars like Julian Rushton who naively insist Elgar lacked the time to construct any ciphers. Rushton’s speculative rush to judgment is unsupported by the known timeline. Elgar began composing the Enigma Variations in earnest on October 21, 1898. The orchestration was completed on February 19, 1899. From inception to completion, the process consumed 121 days or four months. Such a lengthy period afforded more than sufficient time and opportunity for Elgar to indulge his passion for cryptography. Proffering the patently false claim there was inadequate time for Elgar to conceive of any cryptograms within the Enigma Variations conveniently relieves one from the obligation to search for any.
The Letters Cluster Cipher that encodes the covert Theme’s initials is a relatively simple cryptogram. Its discovery precipitated a much broader analysis of all the titles from the Enigma Variations to unmask other meaningful and relevant groupings of adjacent letters. Below is a summary of the Roman numerals and titles of the different movements in the Enigma Variations.


There is no Roman numeral for zero to assign the Enigma Theme that precedes Variation I. For this reason, it is identified by Null, a German term obtained from the Latin nullum that means “nothing.” That identical word turned up during a conversion between Elgar and his wife on the evening of October 21, 1898, when he first performed the Enigma Theme for her on the piano. After hearing it, Alice commented how she liked it and inquired, “What is that?” He replied, “Nothing — but something might be made of it.” Elgar used the word “nothing” to describe the Enigma Theme. At the end of the original score, he cites a paraphrase from Torquato Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered that also employs the word “nothing.” He wrote, “Bramo assai, poco spero, nulla chieggio” (I desire much, I hope little, I ask nothing). The Italian word nulla is nearly identical to null, its German equivalent.
The discovery of the Letters Cluster Cipher fueled the hypothesis that Elgar may have encoded other terms within the Enigma Variations’ titles. These additional words would be connected to the absent Principal Theme, the Enigma’s “dark saying,” and the secret friend commemorated in Variation XIII. This encipherment technique is markedly dissimilar from Stephen Pickett’s surgical cherry-picking of individual letters from titles and names allegedly associated with different movements to jerry-rig a presumed solution for the absent Theme. Given an adequate supply of letters, it is possible to reconstruct almost anything. The key difference between Pickett’s approach and this methodology is that it is narrowly restricted to smaller groupings of adjacent title letters.
A systematic analysis of proximate letters from the titles netted thirty different terms related to the riddles posed by the Enigma Variations. The mechanism for this particular cipher hinges on proximate title letters to form relevant words and names. The solutions expertly interwoven within the titles coherently relate to the riddles posed by the Enigma Variations. One example is the title Christ. This term is spelled by the first initials of Variations I through III (CHR), the Roman numeral I, and the third initials from Variations II and III (ST). Remarkably, the initials CHR and ST are sequential and align in two neat parallel rows.


The discovery of the covert Theme’s initials and secret friend’s title embedded among proximate letters from the Enigma Variations’ titles spurred a renewed search for the hidden melody’s name. Remarkably, it is feasible to reconstruct the common three-word German title for the secret melody from adjacent title letters. The first word of that Teutonic title is conveniently nestled within the Theme’s name, Enigma. A Germanic context is affirmed by how that word was penciled on the Master Score by Jaeger, the only German friend portrayed in the Variations. The word enigma is also spelled the same way in English and German. The first three contiguous letters of Enigma are an anagram of Ein. There is a second way that word is spelled out by proximate title letters in the Theme and Variation I. “EIN” may also be fashioned from the initial E for Enigma, the initial N for Nulla, and the Roman numeral for Variation I. It is contextually appropriate that there is a coded link between the first word of the Enigma Variations and the first word of the covert Theme’s title.


Contiguous initials from Variations I-III and XIV furnish the letters needed to spell FESTE, the second word from the hidden Theme’s German title. Although Variations I and XIV are not neighboring movements, they are intimately connected for three reasons. First, these two movements are musical portraits of Elgar (XIV) and his wife Caroline Alice Elgar (I). Second, this musical union is affirmed by a partial restatement of Variation I in XIV. Third, Elgar is identified by a phonetic rendering of “Edoo” (E.D.U.), a pet name Alice coined from the German spelling Eduard. Like Enigma, “Edoo” is distinctly Germanic. The first initials from the titles of XIV (E and F) and third initials of I (E), II (S), and III (T), are an anagram of FESTE. Alternatively, the E in Variation XIV could be substituted with the E from Enigma. However, the E from Enigma was skipped in this instance as it is already used as part of the first word in the title (EIN).


Neighboring initials from Variations XII, XIII, and XIV provide the letters required to spell BURG. The first and second initials of XII (B. G. N.), the only known initial from XIII (Romanza), and the third initial of XIV (E. D. U.) are an anagram of BURG. Elgar’s phonetic rendering of Alice’s nickname “Edoo” as “E. D. U.” furnishes the crucial adjacent U to complete the spelling. Like the covert Theme’s title, Elgar’s pet name is German.


This cryptanalysis determined that it is feasible to assemble the three-word German title of the covert Theme from adjacent letters in the titles of the Enigma Variations. The first (EIN) is an anagram of the first three letters in Enigma. Alternatively, it may be fashioned from the E in Enigma, N from Nulla, and I from Variation I. The second (FESTE) is encoded by proximate title letters in Variations I, II, III, and XIV. The third (BURG) is enciphered by adjacent title letters in Variations XII, XIII, and XIV. A discernable German antecedent furnishes a part of each word in the decryption. This is the case because the titles of the Theme (Enigma) and Variation XIV (E. D. U.) are Germanic. The distance between Variations III and XII was ostensibly intended to foil recognizing the covert Theme’s name spliced in among the titles of the Enigma Theme, Variations I through III, and XII through XIV.


Elgar expertly interlaced the covert Theme’s title within particular titles of the Enigma Variations using anagrams of adjacent letter groupings. Eight titles from seven contiguous movements are required to construct this particular cryptogram. There is a distinct symmetry as it spans the foundational Theme, the first three variations, and the final three movements. The prominence of two threes suggests a coded version of Elgar’s initials (EE) because that numeral is the mirror image of a capital cursive E. A coded form of Elgar’s dual initials is also detectable in the first and final movements, Enigma and E. D. U.
Could there be yet another layer to this proximate title letters cipher that encodes the title of the covert Theme? A number-to-letter key converts numerals into their corresponding letters of the alphabet. For example, the number one becomes the letter A, the number two the letter B, and so on. Applying this key to the Roman numerals of the movements required to assemble the title of the covert Theme produces the plaintext “ABCLMN” as shown below:
I = A
II= B
III = C
XII = L
XIII = M
XIV = N
The Enigma Theme has no Roman numeral and consequently is assigned a null or zero. The glyph for zero (0) duplicates the letter O. This completes the list of seven number-to-letter conversions in alphabetical order as “ABCLMNO.” When treated as an anagram, those letters may be rearranged as “BLAC NOM.” The first term is a phonetic spelling of black with the letter k absent. It was observed earlier that Elgar generated a phonetic spelling of “Edoo” as “Edu.” Phonetic spellings are an idiosyncrasy of his correspondence. Some examples of these inventive spellings are listed below:
  1. Bizziness (business)
  2. çkor (score)
  3. cszquōrrr (score)
  4. fagotten (forgotten)
  5. FAX (facts)
  6. frazes (phrases)
  7. gorjus (gorgeous)
  8. phatten (fatten)
  9. skorh (score)
  10. SSCZOWOUGHOHR (score)
  11. Xmas (Christmas)
  12. Xqqqq (Excuse)
  13. Xti (Christi)
A synonym for black is dark, a term Elgar used to denote a cipher. An office that specializes in encoding and decoding secret messages is called a Black Chamber. The second term “NOM” is an exact spelling of the French word for name. This word is found in such expressions as “nom de plume” and “nom de guerre.” Consequently, the anagram “BLAC NOM” may be translated as “Black Name.” The complete French translation as “Nom Noir” is alliterative. The ancillary decryption “Black Name” is an apt description for a concealed title. This decryption suggests a password key for pinpointing the specific movements required to reconstruct the covert Theme’s title from contiguous title letters. In his 1899 program note, Elgar cites the French titles of two plays by Maurice MaeterlinckTo learn more about the secrets of the Enigma Variations, read my free eBook Elgar’s Enigmas ExposedPlease help support and expand my original research by becoming a sponsor on Patreon.


Friday, April 2, 2021

Elgar's Violin Concerto Dedication Cipher

“AQUI ESTÁ ENCERRADA EL ALMA DE . . . . .”
(Herein is enshrined the soul of . . . . .)
Elgar’s cryptic dedication to his Violin Concerto

The French virtuoso Renaud Capuçon recently released a masterful recording of Edward Elgar’s Violin Concerto in B minor with the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) under the direction of Sir Simon Rattle. Capuçon’s fulsome tone and rapturous phrasing are extraordinary and mesmerizing. His expressive playing and pristine interpretation are reminiscent of the legendary Nathan Milstein. Capuçon performed the concerto on a 1737 Guarneri “del Gesù” formerly owned by Isaac Stern known as the “Panette” Guarneri. The album presents remarkable parallels with the 1910 premiere given by the legendary Fritz Kreisler on a 1741 Guarneri “del Gesù” with Elgar conducting the LSO. Capuçon and Maestro Rattle deliver a noble tribute to Elgar, one of the great champions of the violin.
Elgar openly dedicated his violin concerto to the virtuoso Fritz Kreisler who publicly lobbied him to compose it and proudly debuted the work over a century ago. There is an air of mystery surrounding the work as it is secretly dedicated to another friend whose name is signified by five dots. Elgar’s cryptic dedication reads, “Aqui está encerrada el alma de . . . . .” It is a fragment from a Spanish epitaph cited from Alain-René Lesage's picaresque novel Gil Blas published between 1715 and 1735. The literal translation reads, “Here is locked up the soul of . . . . .”
The Spanish verb encerrada (locked or shut up) is a parody of the traditional terminology enterrada (interred). Elgar translates the epitaph as “Herein is enshrined the soul of . . . . .” Subtle discrepancies between the literal rendering and Elgar's translation invite a search for ciphers. This hunch is bolstered by at least two considerations. The first is Elgar’s widely acknowledged obsession with cryptography that merits an entire chapter in Craig Bauer’s fascinating book titled Unsolved! The second is a set of cryptograms embedded within the dedication to his Enigma Variations, a work that also harbors a mystifying dedication to a secret friend in Variation XIII.
The identity of Elgar’s covert friend memorialized in his violin concerto has been debated interminably without a satisfactory solution. The list of competing contenders ranges from Alice Stuart-Wortley, Helen Weaver, Julia H. Worthington, William Henry Reed, Caroline Alice Elgar, August Jaeger, to Elgar himself. He cuts short the Spanish epitaph to enhance the mystery as it renders ambiguous the gender of his secret friend. The literary context of the dedication implies this unknown friend had died and was entombed. The truncated epitaph also strongly intimates his friend’s life was similarly cut short. Such implicit parameters preclude from serious consideration the known field of prospective candidates with five-letter names because they were still very much alive in 1910.
Sifting the literary context of Elgar's enigmatic dedication is a reasonable place to begin the search for clues regarding his secret friend's identity. The Spanish epitaph appears in an introductory parable relayed by the protagonist Gil Blas. This prefatory note is shown in its entirety below from an 1886 edition of that popular novel:



Lesage’s short tale depicts two students traveling from the Spanish city of Peñafiel to Salamanca. Along the way, they stop by a roadside spring to rest and refresh themselves. After slaking their thirst, they notice a nearby tombstone level with the ground, its text partially effaced by time and foot traffic. Dousing it with water to reveal the obscured letters, they make out the following Castilian epitaph: “Aqui está encerrada el alma del licenciado Pedro Gracias.” The literal translation is given as, “Here lies shut up the soul of licentiate Pedro Garcias.” The younger of the students burst out in laughter at the erroneous epitaph that should read “enterrada” (interred) rather than “encerrada” (shut or locked up). After this brief interlude of idle amusement, the simpleton thinks nothing more and walks off to resume his journey.
The older, wiser student reasons that the anomalous epitaph hints at a hidden mystery and remains behind to unearth it. Using a knife, he carefully excavates around the unassuming tombstone to discover concealed beneath a leather purse holding 100 gold ducats and a card with a message in Latin. The bequest reads, “Whosoever thou art who hast sense enough to discover the meaning of the inscription, inherit my money, and make better use of it than I have done.” The student quickly returns the stone marker to its place and happily departs with the “soul” of the licentiate in his pocket. Lesage counsels that those who thoughtfully read his prose will “find profit mingled with pleasure.”
Lesage’s deceptively simple parable is layered with graphic and contrasting symbolism. The two students represent the polar extremes of a fool and a sage. Their journey suggests a metaphor for the linear progression of life from a starting point (birth) to a final resting place (death). Their corporeal and collective fate is alluded to by the mysterious tombstone. Death patiently waits for us all. Water is used to revive the living as well as unmask the dead. The “soul” of the departed is symbolically “resurrected” by the wise student to rejoin the land of the living. What could be the moral of this fable? Opportunity presents itself to all who pass by the fountain of life, but only the discerning who are willing to work to unearth it will enjoy its treasures.
There are many aspects of Lesage’s tale that point to a decisive resolution to Elgar’s dedicatory conundrum. The most paramount is that it is a parable with a moral lesson. There is an exceedingly famous person at the crux of Elgar’s Roman Catholic faith renowned for his parables that instruct the righteous and confound the wicked. Conveniently, that historic figure possesses a name with exactly five letters: Jesus. The first name of the deceased (Pedro) is Spanish for Peter, the same for the chief Apostle of Christ and the first Pope of the Roman Catholic Church who is considered the Vicar of Christ. Like Jesus, the name Pedro is masculine and has five letters. The spring that revives the living and reveals the dead may be easily associated with Jesus who called himself the “living water” (see John 4:7-15). The resurrection of the licentiate’s “soul” is an apt metaphor for Elgar’s secret friend who died and miraculously rose from the grave. This brief textual analysis affirms that Elgar's brilliant use of literature cleverly telegraphs his secret friend’s identity.
In his translation of the Spanish epitaph, Elgar substitutes the word “enshrined” for the standard term “interred.” That departure from the original meaning is conspicuously revealing. Enshrine means “to enclose in or as if in a shrine,” and “to preserve or cherish as sacred.” A shrine is defined as “a case, box, or receptacle” that contains “sacred relics (such as the bones of a saint).” It can also mean a sanctuary or tomb where “devotion is paid to a saint or deity.” The only credible candidate whose death and tomb would satisfy the definitions of “enshrined” is Jesus. The Garden Tomb popularized by General Gordon is a sanctuary for Christians who believe it to be the sacred resting place of Christ. Elgar was planning to compose a symphony in honor of General Gordon in 1898 when his artistic energies were suddenly diverted to the Enigma Variations. The Sudarium of Oviedo and the Shroud of Turin are two famous sacred relics linked to the death and burial of Jesus.
There are key elements about the 1910 premiere of Elgar’s violin concerto that further implicate Jesus as the secret dedicatee. Elgar selected Fritz Kreisler as the soloist, a respected musician who shared his Roman Catholic faith. The first syllable of “Kreisler” sounds nearly identical to “Christ.” Like Jesus, Kreisler was born Jewish. The concerto was performed on a violin made by Guarneri “del Gesù”, a famous Roman Catholic luthier. The Italian phrase “del Gesù” means “of Jesus.” The labels on the inside of his renowned instruments exhibit two Christograms, the nomen sacrum (IHS) and a cross fleury. The name of Elgar’s secret dedicatee can be virtually reconstituted by paring the last names of the soloist and his violin as “Gesù Kreisler.”


The violin concerto is not Elgar’s only musical homage to Christ. His first sacred cantata, Lux Christi (The Light of Life), was premiered in 1896 at the Three Choirs Festival in Worcester. In his first attempt at that genre, Elgar portrays the miracle of Jesus healing a man blind from birth as described in John 9. Jesus creates mud with his spittle, applies it to the blind man’s eyes, and instructs him to wash in the pool of Siloam. After the man washes away the mud, his eyesight is miraculously restored. Variation XIII from the Enigma Variations is also dedicated in secret to Jesus Christ whose initials are transparently encoded by its Roman numerals via a number-to-letter key. X represents the number ten, and the tenth letter of the alphabet is J. III stands for three, and the third letter is C.
Elgar was an aficionado of wordplay, and this impulse manifests in his unorthodox Spanish dedication. The word “soul” (alma) is linked to a hidden part of the violin. Inside the violin’s sound box is concealed a small wooden dowel called the sound post. Another name for that component is âme, the French word for “soul.” It is for this reason the sound post is often referred to as the soul post. This small dowel is critical to amplifying the sound of the violin by efficiently conducting the vibration of the strings transferred by the bridge through the top of the instrument down to the back plate. Absent a sound post, the violin produces virtually no sound.

The word “alma” from the Spanish dedication may consequently be interpreted as a coded reference to the innermost part of a violin, its soul post. This connection would account in part for Elgar’s selection of that particular literary fragment for his dedication. As previously observed, the label of Kreisler’s violin located next to the sound post unveils the secret friend’s name in Italian: Gesù (Jesus). Remarkably, that name is preceded by “del,” the same word in the original Spanish epitaph cited by Elgar to denote the masculine gender of his once deceased friend. Just as the grave could not hold the soul of the licentiate in Lesage’s parable, neither could the tomb imprison Jesus for more than three days and three nights before his miraculous resurrection.

Elgar’s Dedication Cipher

The literary context of Elgar’s Spanish epitaph powerfully hints at a concealed message akin to the Latin note as well as some hidden treasure. It was formerly mentioned that Elgar’s translation of the Spanish dedication conceals a coded missive. This conclusion is reinforced by Elgar’s lifelong passion for cryptography and various ciphers embedded within the dedication to his Enigma Variations. What could possibly be the clandestine riches lurking behind the mysterious dedication to Elgar’s violin concerto? The most obvious answer would be the identity of his secret friend, for true friendship is one of life’s great treasures.
What sort of cipher could Elgar expertly weave into the covert dedication to his violin concerto? His English translation of the Spanish epitaph is not a precise match with the literal meaning, suggesting that Elgar’s rendering hides an enciphered message. My original research of the Enigma Variations unveiled the presence of multiple acrostic anagrams, most notably the “EE’s Psalm” Cipher nestled within the seven performance directions of the Enigma Theme's inaugural bar. There are precisely 46 characters in that cryptogram that allude to the 46th chapter of the Book of Psalms. This discovery is significant because the title of the covert Theme (Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott) is furnished by the first line of Psalm 46, a chapter known as Luther’s Psalm.
Could Elgar’s translation of the Spanish dedication contain yet another acrostic anagram? The wording suggests that the dedication conceals the identity of the covert dedicatee and that it may be sought by exhuming the treasured answer. Let us begin digging. The first letters of Elgar's translation are “HIETSO” as shown in bold below:
  1. Herein
  2. is
  3. enshrined
  4. the
  5. soul
  6. of
When treated as an acrostic anagram, these six initials may be rearranged as IHSOTE. Its first three letters (IHS) are a prominent Christogram that originates from the first three letters of the Greek spelling of Jesus (ΙΗΣΟΥΣ). The two sigmas (Σ) in that name resemble a capital E and are suggestive of Elgar's initials (EE). The IHS Christogram appears on the labels of Guarneri’s legendary violins. Those same three letters also represent the Latin phrase “Jesus Hominum Salvator” meaning “Jesus, Savior of Men.” This is the same language found on the licentiate's hidden note in Lesage's parable. The IHS Christogram is featured on the Jesuit emblem. Elgar wrote the initials of the Jesuits' Latin motto (A.M.D.G.) as a dedication for his major sacred works.
The S from “IHS overlaps with the remaining three letters of this acrostic anagram (SOTE) to form a virtually complete spelling of Soter, the Greek word for Savior. The Spanish epitaph is cut off, and so too is this decryption with the absent r. Just as the life of Christ was cut short, so rather symbolically is this decryption of Soter. Conveniently, the absent r is suggested by the resurrection of Christ, and his Latin title Rex (King). The acrostic anagram IHS and SOTE(R) are both Greek in origin. Remarkably, the spelling of that ancient language includes “ee” — the initials for Edward Elgar.
Three languages are used in the construction of Elgar’s Acrostic Anagram Dedication Cipher. His modified translation of the Spanish epitaph is in English. The decryptions of its acrostic anagrams are in Greek and Latin. The first letters of those three languages (E, L, and G) are an abbreviation of his name (ELGar). This mirrors the “IHS” Christogram which is a three-letter abbreviation of the Greek spelling for Jesus. The solution “IHS” represents the first three letters of the Greek spelling for Jesus (ΙΗΣΟΥΣ). The two sigmas (Σ) resemble a capital E (ΙΗΣΟΥΣ) and are suggestive of Elgar's initials (EE). Like the decryption of Soter with the absent r, only the r is missing from “ELG” to complete a phonetic rendering of Elgar as “ELG-R”. In a March 1899 letter to Dora Penny, Elgar signed his surname as “ELG⸻R”. This alternate spelling matches the coded form of “ELG-R” revealed by decrypting the Violin Concerto’s dedication cipher. The languages in Elgar’s dedication cipher implicate a second layer of encryption that encodes a three-letter abbreviation of his name akin to “IHS”. Elgar's initials and name permeate this cryptogram in a manner that provides an elegant form of authentification.


The concealed Latin note in Lesage’s parable is accompanied by a bag of gold coins. Is there some golden treasure secreted away with Elgar’s covert dedication to Jesus in Greek and Latin? The literary context of the dedication deftly alludes to an elegant Grecian wordplay. This is the case as the ancient Greek term for “gold coin” (Chrysós) is almost identical to the Greek word for “Christ” (Chrystós). The pronunciation of those two words is virtually indistinguishable with their spellings separated by a solitary t, a symbol for the cross. Some gold ducats bear the image of Christ. Elgar’s multilingual leveraging of literature and gold coinage is nothing short of magnificent.
This analysis determined that Elgar's English translation of a fragmentary Spanish epitaph from the novel Gil Blas produces the overlapping acrostic anagrams IHS and SOTE(R). The first is a popular Christogram that is an abbreviation of Jesus’ name. The letters SOTE are a nearly complete spelling of Soter, the Greek word for Savior. Like the five dots in the Spanish dedication, there are precisely five letters in the name Jesus. This is consistent with the discovery that the secret friend portrayed in Variation XIII (✡ ✡ ✡) and the Violin Concerto are one and the same — Jesus Christ, the Savior of Elgar's Roman Catholic faith. Elgar’s attraction to an acrostic cipher was likely motivated by the Ichthys, a famous Christogram that is an acrostic of the Greek phrase, “Iησοῦς Χριστὸς Θεοῦ Υἱὸς Σωτήρ” (Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior). It is not a coincidence that this article was published on Good Friday, a day commemorated by followers of Jesus as the anniversary of his brutal execution on the outskirts of Jerusalem. To learn more about the secrets of the Enigma Variations, read my free eBook Elgar’s Enigmas ExposedPlease help support and expand my original research by becoming a sponsor on Patreon.


About Mr. Padgett

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Mr. Padgett studied violin with Michael Rosenker (a student of Leopold Auer), and Rosenker’s pupil, Owen Dunsford. Mr. Padgett studied piano with Sally Magee (a student of Emanuel Bay), and Blanca Uribe (a student of Rosina Lhévinne). He attended the Stevenson School in Pebble Beach, California, and Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a degree in psychology. At Vassar he studied music theory and composition with Richard Wilson. Mr. Padgett has performed for Joseph Silverstein, Van Cliburn, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Maria Shriver, Steve Jobs, Prince Charles, Lady Camilla, Marcia Davenport, William F. Buckley, Jr., and other prominent public figures. His original compositions have been performed by the Monterey Symphony, at the Bohemian Grove, the Bohemian Club, and other private and public venues. In 2008 Mr. Padgett won the Max Bragado-Darman Fanfare Competition with his entry "Fanfare for the Eagles." It was premiered by the Monterey Symphony under Maestro Bragado in May 2008. A member of the Elgar Society, Mr. Padgett is married with five children.