An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents: it rarely happens that Saul becomes Paul. What does happen is that its opponents gradually die out, and that the growing generation is familiarized with the ideas from the beginning: another instance of the fact that the future lies with the youth.
Max Planck (1858–1947)
The celebrated English composer Edward Elgar excelled in cryptography, the science of coding and decoding secret messages. His obsession with that esoteric art merits an entire chapter in Craig P. Bauer’s book Unsolved! Bauer devotes much of the third chapter to Elgar’s meticulous decryption of an allegedly insoluble Nihilist cipher unleashed by John Holt Schooling in the April 1896 issue of The Pall Mall Magazine. The construction of a Nihilist cipher relies on a Polybius square key as its foundation. Elgar was so gratified by his decryption of Schooling’s purportedly impenetrable code that he mentions it in his first biography released by Robert J. Buckley in 1905.
Elgar painted his solution in black paint on a wooden box, an appropriate medium considering that another name for the Polybius square is a box cipher. His process for cracking Schooling’s cryptogram is summarized on a set of nine index cards. On the sixth card, Elgar likens the decryption process to “. . . working (in the dark).” He uses the word “dark” as a synonym for cipher.
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This parenthetical remark is revealing 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 merits 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 wields 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 definition of dark is “secret.” A saying is a series of words that form a coherent phrase or adage. Based on these definitions, Elgar’s odd expression — “dark saying” — may be interpolated as coded language for a cipher. In an oblique way, Elgar hints that the Enigma Theme conceals a secret message.
Mainstream scholars speculate there are no valid solutions to the Enigma Variation because Elgar allegedly concocted the notion of an absent principal Theme as an afterthought, practical joke, or marketing gimmick. The editors of the Elgar Complete Edition preemptively deny the likelihood of any covert counterpoints or cryptograms. Relying on Elgar’s recollection of playing new material at the piano to gauge his wife’s reaction, they tout the standard lore that he must have extemporized the idiosyncratic Enigma Theme mirabelle dictu without any forethought or planning:
There seems to have been no specific ‘enigma’ in mind at the outset: Elgar’s first playing of the music was hardly more than a running over the keys to aid relaxation. It was Alice Elgar’s interruption, apparently, that called him to attention and helped to identify the phrases which were to become the ‘Enigma’ theme. This suggests it is unlikely that the theme should conceal some counterpoint or cipher needed to solve the ‘Enigma’.
Such a blanket renunciation conveniently relieves scholars of the duty to probe for counterpoints and ciphers. Prominent offenders include such luminaries as the late Robert Anderson, Jerrold Northrop Moore, and Julian Rushton. The gargantuan irony is that proponents of this denialism extol the validity of their position based on a dearth of evidence for which they never executed a diligent or impartial search. Such a ridiculous state of affairs is a textbook case of confirmation bias pawned off as “scholarship.” Max Planck observed that the older generation rarely comprehends or embraces new concepts and that it is up to the next generation to recognize and adopt new ways of thinking. Planck’s outlook is distilled from the idiom, “You can’t teach old dogs new tricks.” After legacy scholars fade into history, a new cohort will be far more receptive to innovative lines of inquiry and analysis. Sifting the Enigma Variations for ciphers will eventually be deemed a scholarly objective rather than a speculative fringe activity.
Embraced by those who take Elgar at his published word, the more sensible view accepts the challenge of a famous melody lurking behind the Variations’ contrapuntal and modal facade. In his sanctioned 1905 biograph, Elgar plainly states, “The theme is a counterpoint on some well-known melody which is never heard . . .” Most scholars insist the answer can never be known because Elgar allegedly took his secret to the grave. This supposition precludes from serious consideration the prospect that he encoded the solution within the Enigma Variations for posterity to discover. Indeed, such a rigid judgment glosses over or blatantly ignores Elgar’s documented obsession with cryptography. That incontestable facet of his psychological profile accentuates the possibility that solutions are skillfully encoded by the Enigma Variations’ orchestral score.
A compulsion for cryptography is a reigning facet of Elgar’s personality. Trawling the Enigma Variations for over a decade netted over one hundred cryptograms in diverse formats that encode a set of mutually consistent and complementary solutions. Although that figure may seem astronomical, it is entirely consistent with Elgar’s fascination for ciphers. More significantly, their solutions provide definitive answers to key riddles 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 Lord and Savior of Elgar’s Roman Catholic faith.
Some Enigma Theme Ciphers
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There are some fascinating ciphers nestled within the Enigma Theme’s inaugural measures. The first was discovered by Richard Santa and presented in his paper “Solving Elgar’s Enigma” published by Columbia University’s journal Current Musicology. A retired engineer, Santa astutely recognized that the scale degrees of the Enigma Theme’s opening four melody notes encode “3-1-4-2”. This sequence of scale degrees in G minor is a rounded form of Pi (3.142), the mathematical constant representing the ratio of the circle’s circumference to its diameter. Santa’s groundbreaking discovery established that Elgar encodes information within the Enigma Theme. That breakthrough demands ongoing efforts to detect and decrypt other cryptograms ensconced within the Enigma Variations with a special focus on the Enigma Theme.
Elgar encodes Pi in multiple ways in the Enigma Theme’s opening measure. Pi is enciphered by the first violin part with its opening melodic phrase played in third position on the D string using the fingerings 3, 1, 4, and 2. The dynamic piano at the beginning of the Enigma Theme is assigned to the staves of the string quartet: Violin I, Violin II, Viola, and Cello. Remarkably, piano begins with “Pi”. The Enigma Theme’s repeating palindromic rhythm in bars 1-6 repeated in bars 11-16 is discernibly circular with alternating pairs of eighth notes and quarter notes. Based on this assessment, Elgar encodes Pi in at least six ways in the Enigma Theme’s opening bar. The first uses its melodic scale degrees (3-1-4-2). The second employs the fingerings of the first violin part (3-1-42). The remaining four rely on the first two letters of the dynamic piano assigned to the staves of the string quartet. A rounded form of Pi captures Elgar’s penetrating sense of wordplay as that mathematical constant pertains to a circle, a round geometric figure.
The Enigma Theme is introduced by the first violins on the D string in the third position. D is the third string of the violin with E as the first, A as the second, and G as the fourth and lowest. Combining third position with the third finger on the third string furnishes three threes. These two threes are suggestive of the three days and three nights that Jesus spent in the tomb as prophesied in Matthew 12:40. Two threes are also a coded form of Elgar’s initials as “33” is the mirror image of two capital cursive Es. Other cryptograms in the Enigma Variations are also stamped with Elgar’s initials.
The number “33” is connected to Elgar’s secret friend depicted in Variation XIII. The early church historian Eusebius promulgated the belief that Jesus was crucified at age 33 following a three-and-a-half-year ministry. The number 33 is suggested by two descending melodic minor thirds in bar 1 with B-flat descending to G, and C falling to A. The term third begins with t, a letter that resembles the Latin cross. The letters C and A also happen to be the initials of Annas and Caiaphas, two leading religious figures in Jerusalem who conspired to hand Jesus over to Pontius Pilate to be crucified. The dynamic piano marked “p” gives the initial for Pilate. The first notes of each melodic third are B-flat and C, the first and third notes of the Enigma Theme in bar 1. The letters of those first and third upper melody notes generate “BC”, the acronym for “Before Christ.” “BC” is a label for the Julian and Gregorian Calendars that indicates years before Christ’s birth.
The second and fourth note letters in bar 1 are “AG”, the symbol for the chemical element silver. Elgar was obsessed with chemistry, eventually setting up a laboratory in a shed dubbed “The Ark” at his home Plas Gwyn in Hereford. He was undoubtedly familiar with the periodic table of elements. According to Matthew 26:14-15, Jesus was betrayed by his disciple Judas Iscariot in exchange for thirty pieces of silver. The word in this passage refers to silver coins, most likely the Tryian shekel required to pay the temple tax in Jerusalem. Remarkably, the second and third melodic notes in bar 1 (G-C) encode the initials of “Gesù Cristo” which is the Italian translation of “Jesus Christ.” This determination is consistent with the Italian nomenclature used throughout the score for the instrumentation and performance directions.
Decoding the first notes of each melodic third in bar 1 as the acronym “BC” is bolstered by two more melodic thirds in bar 2 of the Enigma Theme. This second pair of thirds reiterates a coded form of Elgar’s initials and the age of Jesus at the crucifixion. The first melodic third is a D descending a major third to B-flat. The second is an A rising a minor third to C. The first notes from each melodic third in bar 2 are D and A, a reverse spelling of “AD” meaning “Anno Domini” (Year of our Lord). The latter notes of each melodic third in the second bar are B-flat and C, another coded rendition of “BC.” Years are counted backward in BC from highest to lowest, and forward in AD from lowest to highest. This divergence mirrors Elgar’s contrapuntal pairing of the covert Theme with the Enigma Theme as Ein feste Burg plays backward in retrograde as the audible Theme proceeds forward. Elgar embedded the acronyms BC and AD in the opening two bars of the Enigma Theme to hint at the identity of his secret friend and the unusual contrapuntal treatment of the covert Theme.
In Elgar’s unexpected mapping, Ein feste Burg plays backward through and over the Enigma Theme that proceeds forward. The audible theme plays in the ordinary manner as the unheard principal Theme runs in reverse. According to Kent Kennan, the author of the textbook Counterpoint, the rarest type is retrograde motion when a melody is played in reverse from back to front. As he explains:
Retrograde motion (cancrizans) is rare in tonal music. Not only is it difficult to write, but the average ear has trouble recognizing a melodic line when it is played backwards; consequently the point of the device tends to be lost.
Contrapuntal motion is exceedingly difficult to detect, especially when it is camouflaged by modifications to note values known as free rhythm. There are 31 melodic note conjunctions between the Ein feste Burg and the Enigma Theme. There are an additional 46 harmonic note conjunctions with notes shared between the covert Theme’s melody line and the harmonic structure of the Enigma Theme’s accompaniment. In all, there are 77 sequentially shared notes between Ein feste Burg and the Enigma Theme. These note convergences occur in an orderly sequence in every single bar of the Enigma Theme.
According to the genealogy in the Gospel of Luke, the number 77 is associated with Jesus who is the 77th generation after the creation of Adam — the first man — by God. The same number is suggested by two descending sevenths in bars 3 and 4 of the Enigma Theme as Jesus “descended” from God through Adam. The first descending seventh is formed by the notes G and A, the initials for God and Adam. Interpolating the note G as the initial for God is supported by the D that precedes it, yielding a reverse phonetic spelling of God as “G-D.”
A second descending seventh in bar 4 is formed by the notes F and G. G is the initial for Gesù, the Italian spelling of Jesus. F is the initial of Friend. Elgar’s dedication of the Enigma Variations reads, “Dedicated to my Friends pictured within.” In John 15:13-15, Jesus refers to his followers as friends. F is also the initial for various titles ascribed to Jesus such as Faithful (Revelation 19:11), Finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2), Firstborn (Colossians 1:15 and Colossians 1:18), Firstfruits (1 Corinthians 15:23), and Forsaken (Matthew 27:46). In this context, the most relevant and operative of these titles is Firstborn. This conclusion is bolstered by three letters unveiled by the second melodic seventh (m7: F-G) in bar 4 which provide the initials for gold, frankincense, and myrrh. These costly treasures were given by the Magi to Jesus in Bethlehem to commemorate his royal birth as documented in Matthew 2:11. This event is celebrated on the feast day of Epiphany.
“The Adoration of the Magi” by Edward Burne-Jones
The sequential melodic notes G, A, and B-flat in bar 4 are a phonetic spelling of Gabe, a shortened version of Gabriel. At the Annunciation recorded in Luke 1:26-38, the Angel Gabriel appeared to Mary to announce that she, a virgin, would miraculously give birth to a son and call him Jesus. The melodic notes A and B-flat furnish the glyphs needed to construct the anagram “BAb”, a phonetic realization of Babe. Merriam-Webster defines babe as a baby or infant. The note letters and descending sevenths in bars 3 and 4 present numerous coded references to the birth of Elgar’s secret friend.
Elgar prepared brief explanatory notes in 1927 for a set of pianola rolls of the Enigma Variations produced by the Aeolian Company. These were eventually published in 1946 by Novello under the title My Friends Pictured Within. In his remarks concerning the Enigma Theme, Elgar draws particular attention to its descending melodic sevenths. He states, “The drop of a seventh in the Theme (bars 3 and 4) should be observed.” This cryptic proviso compelled Rushton to deduce that the correct solution to the Enigma Variations “. . . should take into account the characteristic falling sevenths in bars 3-4.” However, Elgar offers no explanation for why the descending sevenths should be scrutinized.
Elgar’s characterization of these melodic sevenths with the term “drop” is revealing as one definition of that word is “a place or central depository to which something (such as mail, money, or stolen property) is brought for distribution or transmission.” Elgar’s carefully parsed language intimates that the descending sevenths are an information drop in the guise of a cipher. A meticulous analysis uncovered a trove of encoded information in and around these descending sevenths including the initials for God, Adam, Firstborn, and Gesù; the initials of gold, frankincense, and myrr; a phonetic short form spelling of Gabriel; and a phonetic spelling of Babe. Two descending sevenths further hint at the number 77, the span of generations between Adam and Jesus. 77 is also the number of note conjunctions between Elgar’s unusual contrapuntal mapping of Ein feste Burg in retrograde with the Enigma Theme.
The number 77 suggested by the two descending sevenths in bars 3 and 4 is conspicuous because it is linked to by scriptural passages about the secret friend depicted in Variation XIII. In that poignant Romanza, Elgar cites a melodic incipit for Felix Mendelssohn’s concert overture Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage (Meeresstille und glückliche Fahrt) to sonically portray a calm sea. Psalm 77:19 declares of God, “Your way was through the sea, your path through the great waters; yet your footprints were unseen.” In Mark 6:45-51. Jesus walked on the sea during a powerful storm and restored calm when he stepped into a boat holding his bewildered disciples:
Immediately he made his disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side, to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. And after he had taken leave of them, he went up on the mountain to pray. And when evening came, the boat was out on the sea, and he was alone on the land. And he saw that they were making headway painfully, for the wind was against them. And about the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea. He meant to pass by them, but when they saw him walking on the sea they thought it was a ghost, and cried out, for they all saw him and were terrified. But immediately he spoke to them and said, “Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid.” And he got into the boat with them, and the wind ceased.
Elgar’s depiction of a calm sea in Variation XIII — a movement secretly dedicated to Christ — reflects an intimate knowledge of the Old and New Testament scriptures.
The melodic intervals immediately preceding the two descending sevenths in bars 3 and 4 are a perfect fourth (D-G) and a minor sixth (A-F). When paired together, these intervals implicate the number 46, the chapter of the Psalms that inspired Luther to write Ein feste Burg. The notes of the perfect fourth are a reverse phonetic spelling of God, the sixth word in the covert Theme’s title. The notes of the minor sixth provide the first and third initials of Frederic H. Hedge’s popular translation of Ein feste Burg as A Mighty Fortress.
The string accompaniment for the descending seventh in bar 4 efficiently conveys the initials of the covert Theme and secret friend. On the downbeat of measure 4, the second violins play F descending to E-flat over a sustained open G string as the violas sustain a harmonic G and the cellos play a B rising to C. The single notes F, B, and E in the second violin and cello staves are an anagram of “EFB”, the initials of Ein feste Burg. The remaining two notes — G and C — are the initials of Jesus Christ in Italian as Gesù Cristo. The pairing of G with C is reinforced by the chord progression of a G dominant seventh resolving to C minor. These encoded initials for the covert Theme and secret friend are consistent with the majority of the titles from the Enigma Variations which are likewise initials.
It was shown earlier how the melodic descending seventh (m7: F-G) provides the initials of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. It was also observed that the melodic note sequence G, A, and B-flat is a phonetic rendering of Gabe, a short form of Gabriel. That is the name of the angel who appeared to the Virgin Mary to tell her that she would be the mother of the Messiah. The melodic notes A and B-flat provide the letters required to form the anagram “BAb”, a phonetic realization of Babe. These precise decryptions are too interrelated and specific to be the outcome of a fortuitous formation.
The second descending seventh in bar 4 and its accompaniment are marked pianissimo (pp). That dynamic replicates the initials of Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor who condemned Jesus to death. Pilate begins with “Pi”, the constant encoded in the Enigma Theme’s first bar. Six coded versions of Pi in bar 1 and four in bar 4 highlight the numbers six and four. These numerals may be combined to form “46”, the chapter from the Psalms that inspired Ein feste Burg. The Enigma Theme’s ABA’C structure has six bars in Section A and four bars in Section B. These bar lengths provide a reverse encoding of the number 46. There are four melodic notes in each measure of Section A which consists of six bars. There are six melodic notes in each measure of Section B which has four bars. These note sums and bar lengths in Sections A and B reinforce the association between the numbers four and six.
The downbeat of bar 5 is an augmented sixth chord classified as a German sixth. This chord furnishes two critical clues about the hidden melody’s title which is six German words. Other research determined that seven discrete performance directions in bar 1 encode the acrostic anagram “EE’s Psalm”. The first two letters are Edward Elgar’s initials “EE” followed by an “s” to indicate the possessive form. The word “Psalm” denotes a chapter from a book of sacred hymns from the Old Testament Bible called the Psalms. Significantly, the title of Ein feste Burg comes from the first line of Psalm 46. The discrete performance directions used to construct the acrostic anagram “EE’s Psalm” consist of precisely 46 characters, a sum that pinpoints Psalm 46. That chapter is popularly known as “Luther’s Psalm” because it inspired his renowned hymn Ein feste Burg. Indeed, Martin Luther referred to his most famous hymn as the “46th Psalm.”
Elgar’s most sophisticated cryptogram is a musical Polybius box cipher in bars 1-6 of the Enigma Theme that encodes the entire 24-letter German title of the covert Theme. The solution is disguised as a grand anagram with words and phrases in English, Latin, and what Elgar would have reasonably believed to be Aramaic based on contemporary biblical commentaries. The decryption of the first bar is “GSUS”, a phonetic rendering of Jesus, the secret dedicatee of Variation XIII. Three letters from “GSUS” appear in the Italian translation Gesù. Four languages employed in this complex cryptogram generate the acrostic anagram “ELGAr”: English, Latin, German, and Aramaic. Realizing that the solution would be deemed controversial, Elgar autographed it through a second tier of encipherment only accessible after cracking the first layer.
The decryptions “Pi” and “GSUS” obtained from ciphers in the Enigma Theme’s first measure may be merged as “Pi GSUS”. The fusion of these solutions is a phonetic approximation of “Pie Jesu”, a text from the final couplet of the Latin hymn Dies Irae that is featured as a motet in numerous musical settings of the Requiem Mass. The Latin phrase “Pie Jesu” means “Pious Jesus.” Encoding Pi with the name Jesus subtly alludes to the host, a circular communion wafer used during Mass to celebrate the Eucharist. This impression is consistent with Elgar’s birth, education, marriage, and burial as a Roman Catholic. According to that faith tradition, the host is deemed the physical embodiment of Jesus. Elgar composed four settings of “O Salutaris Hostia” (O Saving Host) between 1880 (No. 1 in E-flat major, and No. 3 in F major), 1882 (unnumbered in G major) and 1898 (No. 2 in E-flat major). These settings predate the Enigma Variations which were composed between October 1898 and February 1899 with 96 bars added to the Finale during late June and July 1899.
A circular communion wafer
This integrated decryption “Pi GSUS” parallels a proximate title letters cipher in the opening four movements of the Enigma Variations that encodes “PIE CHRISTI ABIDE” (Pious Christ Abide). Elgar uses the word Christi in the original title of his first sacred oratorio, The Light of Life Op.29. Composed in 1896, it was originally entitled Lux Christi (Light of Christ). Elgar’s initials are spliced into the anagram “PIE CHRISTI ABIDE” as the last letters of the first and third words.
Another way that Elgar encodes information in the Enigma Theme is by filtering its palindromic rhythmic pattern through Morse code. Elgar studied Morse code, eventually coining the palindrome Siromoris as his telegraphic address. Dora Penny was a frequent guest at the Elgar household in 1898 and 99 when he birthed the Enigma Variations. She decorated the flyleaf of her 1899 diary with the Morse alphabet, a subject that was likely raised by Elgar. Relying on the key for International Morse code, it is easy to translate the Enigma Theme’s circular rhythmic pattern of alternating pairs of two eighth notes and two quarter notes into plaintext letters. Two eighth notes are the equivalent of two dots that represent the leter I. Two quarter notes are akin to two dashes that denote the letter M. Based on these Morse code translations, the Enigma Theme’s rhythm in bar 1 encodes “IM” followed by its reverse in bar 2 as “MI”. This two-bar rhythmic pattern cycles through bar 6 and again in bars 11 through 16 for a total of six statements of the four letters “IMMI”. The combination of the numbers four and six subtly hints at the number 46 which is encoded in multiple ways throughout the Enigma Theme.
Elgar was a connoisseur of codes and anagrams. As the composer of such sacred oratorios The Apostles and The Kingdom, he was well-versed in theology. The violinist William H. Reed remarked that Elgar’s “ . . . knowledge of the Bible and the Apocrypha was profound.” What message could Elgar conceivably send with the plaintext “IMMI”? “IM” is the phonetic equivalent of the statement “I AM.” Considering Elgar’s penchant for anagrams, “MI” may be reasonably construed as the mirror image of “IM” as a second “I AM.” The meaning of “IMMI” relates to Elgar’s encyclopedic knowledge of the Bible garnered through many years of study in preparation for composing his sacred oratorios. “IMMI” is an anagram of “IM IM”, a phonetic approximation of the title “I AM that I AM” given by God to Moses at the burning bush as recorded in the third chapter of the Book of Exodus. This mysterious name for God is called the Great I AM and appears in scripture in its short form as “I AM.” When the Pharisees questioned his identity, Jesus replied by invoking that sacred name. The encoding of “GSUS” and “IM” by different ciphers in the first bar of the Enigma Theme generates two phonetically rendered names related to Elgar’s secret friend: Jesus and “I AM.” The hidden melody’s title A Mighty Fortress is also a title for God given throughout the Psalms.
There is yet another theological basis for featuring so many “IM” references in the Enigma Theme. As recorded in the Gospel of John, Jesus issued seven enigmatic “I am” statements:
- I am the bread of life.
- I am the light of the world.
- I am the gate.
- I am the good shepherd.
- I am the resurrection and the life.
- I am the way and the truth and the life.
- I am the vine.
It is noteworthy that each statement begins with “I am . . . ” With so many repetitions of “IM” via Morse code in the Enigma Theme, Elgar draws attention to this theological shibboleth associated with his secret friend. In the context of his Roman Catholic education and faith, the elusive explanation for the repeated “IM” statements is brought into crystal clear focus. The phrase is intimately connected to Jesus of Nazareth, the friend covertly portrayed in Variation XIII with marine references easily related to the Sign of Jonah. When the scribes and Pharisees demanded a sign from Jesus, he replied that the only sign that they would be given is the Sign of Jonah. Matthew 12:40 records his explanation, “For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”
“MI” is a phonetic version of “Am I”, a phrase used by Jesus in some memorable discourses. In Matthew 17:17, he asks, “O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you?” He famously said in Matthew 18:20, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” In Matthew 20:15, Jesus asks, “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me?” He concludes his parable about the laborers in the vineyard with the declaration in Matthew 20:16, “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.” That statement aptly describes Elgar’s retrograde treatment of Ein feste Burg by starting with its ending phrase and concluding with its beginning phrase.
“MI” is also a phonetic rendering of me. That pronoun features prominently at the Last Supper when Jesus celebrated his final repast with his disciples in an upper room. On the eve of his arrest and crucifixion, Jesus took the bread and gave thanks, then gave it to his disciples and said, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” (Luke 22:19-20). In like manner, he then took a cup of wine, gave thanks, offered it to his disciples, and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” (1 Corinthians 11:23-25). Both sets of instructions to his disciples conclude with the word me. The Last Supper is the template for the Eucharist.
The Enigma Theme (Autograph Score)
Following the June 1899 premiere of the Enigma Variations, Elgar was persuaded to expand his musical self-portrait, the Finale. He appended 96 bars to Variation XIV and added an organ part. Below is a facsimile of the autograph score showing the opening three measures of the Enigma Theme with the organ insertion.
A close-up of Elgar’s label for the organ part shows that he penned, “Organo ad lib (tacet till Finale)”. Like the absent principal Theme, the staves for the organ are missing from the score on this page. Two es in his six-word label suggest a coded form of Elgar’s initials.
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“Organo ad lib (tacet till Finale)” insertion
The Enigma Variations (Autograph Score)
At a meeting with Sir Mark Elder in October 2021, the maestro voiced his suspicion that Elgar’s unusual organ label could be a cipher. Referring to the autograph score, that label consists of six words in three different languages. The first word “Organo” is in Italian. The second (ad), third (lib.), and fourth (tacet) are in Latin. The remaining two words (till Finale) are in English. These three languages in order of appearance are listed below:
- Italian
- Latin
- English
The initials of these three languages are a reverse acrostic of “ELI”: Italian, Latin, and English. Why would Elgar encode “ELI” as an acrostic from the three languages of his organ label? The secret friend memorialized by Variation XIII spoke that word twice at his public execution. The Gospel of Matthew records that as Jesus hung on the cross, he cried out around the ninth hour in Aramaic, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” (My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?). “Eli” is Aramaic for “My God.” This was Christ’s fourth declaration out of seven from the cross. In making this statement, Jesus recited the first verse of Psalm 22. That chapter is called a Messianic Psalm because it prophesied numerous events about Christ’s crucifixion. Based on this citation, Matthew 27:46 is inextricably linked to the Book of Psalms. Remarkably, the verse number (46) from Matthew 27 combined with “Psalm” is a coded form of Psalm 46, the chapter that inspired the hymn Ein feste Burg.
Elgar was certainly aware of the linkage between Matthew 27 and Psalm 22. He spent many years studying the Bible, the Apocrypha, biblical commentaries, and other theological texts in preparation for writing his sacred oratorio The Apostles. Shortly before its premiere in October 1903, he remarked about the libretto, “I have been thinking it out since boyhood, and have been selecting the words for years, many years.” William H. Reed, an accomplished violinist and confidant, recalls how Elgar consulted both Roman Catholic and Anglican experts when compiling his libretto for The Apostles:
On 31st July, it is recorded, Elgar, wishing to write his own libretto for the oratorio, The Apostles, began to collect material. As is well known, his knowledge of the Bible and the Apocrypha was profound. He certainly consulted his friends also, both in his own Roman Catholic church and in the Anglican, for instance Canon Gorton, who helped him a great deal in his researches.
Above five bars in the vocal score of The Apostles, Elgar wrote “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani.”
The English music critic and musicologist Ernest Newman devotes attention to this passage in his 1906 book The Master of the Masters: Elgar:
The drama now moves to Golgotha, where we see only the last episode of all, the death of Jesus. Believing that the cry of “Eli, Eli, lama sabacthani?” could not be fittingly given to any human voice, Elgar has entrusted it to the muted strings alone.
Elgar's trilingual label for the organ generates the acrostic anagram “ELI,” a theologically infused term that affirms that Jesus is the secret friend memorialized in Variation XIII. This particular method of encipherment is exquisitely appropriate as the word “acrostic” has within it a nearly complete spelling of cross (acrostic). The same acrostic encipherment technique is also observed in a musical Polybius cipher nestled in bars 1-6 of the Enigma Theme where Elgar encodes his last name via four different languages: English. Latin, German, and Aramaic.
Prior research uncovered a number-to-letter cipher in the opening six bars of the Enigma Theme constructed from the horizontal sums of notes from each active part. This opening section of the Enigma Theme is sequestered by an oddly placed double bar at the end of measure 6. In bars 1-6 there are 24 melody notes in the first violin staff, 17 notes in the second violin staff, 15 notes in the viola staff, and 12 notes in the cello staff. It was observed that none of these totals exceeds the number of letters in the English alphabet. This realization suggested the use of a number-to-letter key (1 = A, 2 = B, 3 = C, etc.) to translate these notes into their corresponding letters of the alphabet.
Converting the sums 12, 15, 17, and 24 into their corresponding letters of the alphabet generates the plaintext “LOQX”. This decryption is realized in an upward trajectory starting from the cello staff and concluding with the first violin staff. “LOQX” is the phonetic equivalent of locks, a mechanism opened by keys. The discovery of the Locks cipher triggered a reassessment of the musical keys of the Enigma Theme, a movement framed in the parallel modes of G minor and G major. The accidentals for those parallel minor and major keys are B-flat, E-flat, and F-sharp. The letters of those accidentals are an anagram of “EFB”, the initials of Ein feste Burg.
The flipside of the standard number-to-letter key is to count backward starting with the last letter of the alphabet. This parallels the convention of countering forward with years labeled AD, and backward with years labeled BC. Using this reverse approach, one translates to Z, two to Y, three to X, and so forth. When this retrograde key is applied to the same note totals extracted from bars 1-6 of the Enigma Theme’s active staves, it produces “OLJC”. The first two letters are a reverse spelling of “LO”, a term that Merriam-Webster defines as “to call attention or to express wonder or surprise.” Jesus employed that particular word moments before his ascent to heaven when he issued the Great Commission, assuring his disciples in Matthew 28:20, “. . . and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” The letters “JC” are the initials of Jesus Christ, the secret friend portrayed in Variation XIII. The full decryption “OLJC” is the anagram “LOJC” which may be read as “Behold Jesus Christ.” This ancillary decryption reveals the initials of Elgar’s secret friend, a solution consistent with the majority of the titles from the Variations which are also initials. Remarkably, the application of a number-to-letter key to the Roman numerals “XIII” also produces the initials “JC”.
Counting forward and backward in the alphabet to decrypt the Enigma Theme’s “Locks” and “Lo Jesus Christ” ciphers is a bilateral technique that mirrors Elgar’s baffling contrapuntal treatment of the covert Theme with the Enigma Theme.
Scanning bars 1-6 horizontally unveils coded versions of Elgar’s initials in the form of two E-flats. The second violin staff has two E-flats with the first on beat three of bar 2, and the second on beat three of bar 4. The viola staff also has two E-flats with the first on the downbeat of bar 5, and the second in bar 6 on beats three and four. The cello staff has precisely two E-flats with the first on beat three of bar 3, and the second in bar 6 on beats one and two. Although there are no E-flats in bars 1-6 of the first violin part, its performance directions in bar 1 encode the acrostic anagram “EE’s Psalm” that unveils those same initials. Consequently, all four active staves harbor some coded version of Elgar’s initials. These coded forms of Elgar’s initials parallel those observed in the “EE’s Psalm” cipher, “PIE CHRISTI ABIDE” cipher, and “Organo ad lib (tacet till Finale)” cipher.
Scanning vertically through the opening six bars permits the formation of three more pairs of E-flats. The first pair is formed in bars 2 and 3 by E-flats in the second violin and cello staves. The second pair is obtained in bars 4 and 5 by E-flats in the second violin and viola staves. The third pair is generated in bar 6 by E-flats in the viola and cello staves. This vertical analysis implied adding up note totals in each bar. That insight led to the unmasking of another cryptogram that is now the focus of this essay.
The Enigma Theme Vertical Note Sums Cipher
In this Christmas season that celebrates the birth of Jesus, it is a privilege to announce the discovery of another cryptogram situated in the opening six bars of the Enigma Variations. Although similar to the “LOQX” cipher, its structure depends on adding up all notes vertically in each bar and converting those sums into their corresponding letters of a 24-character cipher alphabet. Elgar used just such an alphabet when assigning letters to curlicue characters devised for his famous Dorabella cipher dating from July 1897. The key for this ciphertext is preserved in one of his surviving notebooks.
Elgar's Notebook 24-Character Cipher Alphabet
Elgar reduces the number of characters from 26 to 24 by conflating the similar letters i with j, and u with v. Combining nearly identical letters is a routine convention in cryptography. Below is a summary of Elgar’s 24-character cipher alphabet with numbers assigned to each letter.
Written notes in each of the opening six bars were tabulated vertically and yielded the sums 14, 10, 12, 11, 12, and 9. Using Elgar’s 24-character cipher alphabet as a number-to-letter key, these figures were translated into the plaintext letters O, K. M, L, M, and I/J.
A cursory assessment of “OKMLMIJ” would be to surmise that these as merely random letters. A more rigorous analysis shows that they are far from random. What follows is a breakdown of this seemingly nonsensical text string starting with “O” in bar 1.
Bar 1: “O”
The plaintext letter O is a common denominator in the “LOQX” (Locks) and “LOJC” (Behold Jesus Christ) ciphers stationed in the Enigma Theme’s opening six measures. Its round shape conforms with Elgar’s encoding in bar 1 of the mathematical constant Pi, the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. “O” is also shaped like the Eucharistic host that Roman Catholics recognize as the physical body of Christ. Interpolating the plaintext “O” as a coded allusion to the host is supported by other ciphers in bar 1 mentioned earlier that encode the Italian initials for Jesus Christ (GC), a phonetic equivalent of Jesus (GSUS), and age at his crucifixion (33). The anagram “PIE CHRISTI ABIDE” (Pious Christ Abide) derived from proximate letters in the opening four titles of the Enigma Variations alludes to the host as the physical and spiritual embodiment of Christ.
Compelling evidence that Elgar associated the letter O with the sacred host is his four musical settings of “O Salutaris Hostia” (O Saving Host) with “O” as the first letter and word of that Latin title.
“O Salutaris Hostia” is the penultimate stanza from the hymn “Verbum supernum prodiens” by St. Thomas Aquinas. There is a host of musical settings of “O Salutaris Hostia” by many composers including Beethoven, Charpentier, Cherubini, Liszt, Martini, Palestrini, Rossini, Saint-Saëns, Schumann, and Tallis. Elgar set it twice in E-flat (1880 and 1898), once in F major (1880), and once in G major (1882). YouTube offers some excellent recordings of Elgar’s published settings by the Worcester Cathedral Choir under the direction of Christopher Robinson.
Two settings are published under the heading “O Salutaris.” The initials of this shortened title (OS) are provided by the first and last letters of three performance directions in bar 1 of the Enigma Theme. The first is formed by the last letter of legato and the first letter of sostenuto. A second is given by the first and last letters of sostenuto. The third is furnished by the last letters of molto express. Honing in on the first and last letters of these Italian terms is implied by one of the many titles of Christ as “the First and the Last” (Revelation 1:17).
Bars 2, 3, and 4: “K” & “ML”
The plaintext “K” encoded in bar 2 is a letter Elgar wrote on manuscripts to show that he made a copy. K is the initial of the German verb “Kopiert” meaning “Copied.” As Anthony Payne explains about Elgar’s manuscript sketches for the Third Symphony, “They are cancelled, as was Elgar’s habit, with a large red-crayon K for ‘kopiert’, or, knowing the great man’s love of word-play, even perhaps ‘Koppied’. The German origin of “K” is a glaring clue regarding the next two plaintext letters encoded in bars 3 and 4. “ML” is the initials of Martin Luther, the composer of Ein feste Burg. Consequently, the plaintext “KML” is the abbreviation of the German phrase “Kopiert Martin Luther” (Copied Martin Luther). Such a decryption captures the essence of the Enigma Theme as a counterpoint to Ein feste Burg.
Bars 5 and 6: “M” & “I”
The plaintext letters “MI” obtained from note sums in bars 5 (M) and 6 (I/J) match those encoded in by the Enigma Theme’s circular rhythm via Morse code. Two eighth notes followed by two and quarter notes encode “IM” in the odd bars 1, 3, 5, 11, 13, and 15. Two quarter notes followed by two eighth notes encode “MI” in the even bars 2, 4, 6, 12, 14, and 16. It was previously observed that “IM” is the phonetic equivalent of “I AM”, a special name for God recorded in the Book of Exodus. The parallels between the Enigma Theme’s Morse code decryption and the plaintext “MI” support a reading of “MI” as the reverse phonetic spelling of “I AM.” The final plaintext letter encoded by note sums in bar 6 is “J”, the initial for Jesus. The plaintext “MIJ” from bars 5 and 6 is an anagram of “IMJ” that may be decoded as the statement “I AM Jesus.” The plaintext “IMJ” (I AM Jesus) precisely mirrors the decryptions “IM” (I AM) and “GSUS” (Jesus) in bar 1 of the Enigma Theme. “Be still and know that I am God” is a frequently cited passage from Psalm 46:10. That verse features the phrase “I am.”
Bars 1- 6: “MOM LIK J”
When treated as an anagram, the plaintext letter string “OKMLMIJ” may be reshuffled to produce “MOM LIK J”. “MOM” is the informal of mother. Saint Mary is the Virgin Mother of Jesus and is called “Lady Mary” by Roman Catholics. The initials of that reverential title emerge in bars 5 (L) and 6 (M) of the plaintext. “LIK” is the phonetic equivalent of like, an adjective Merriam-Webster defines as “the same or nearly the same (as in appearance, character, or quantity).” “J” is the initial for Mary’s son Jesus. The Roman Catholic doctrines about Mary’s Immaculate Conception, Perpetual Virginity, and bodily Assumption into heaven are traits shared by Jesus. Consequently, the phonetic anagram “Mom like Jesus” accurately reflects these core tenets of Mariology.
Some Fragmentary Anagrams
Evaluating the plaintext series “OKMLMIJ” for partial anagrams produces some interesting results. Letters from bars 1 (O), 2 (K), and 3 (M) may be rearranged as “MOK”, a phonetic version of mock. Jesus was mocked in three phases following his arrest, trial, and gruesome crucifixion. In phase one, he was taunted after his trial before the Sanhedrin as described in Luke 22:63. In phase two, he was derided by his Roman captors after his condemnation before Pilate as documented in Matthew 27:27-31. In phase three, he was ridiculed while hanging on the cross as recorded in Mark 15:29-32. Plaintext letters from measures 1 (O), 2 (K), and 6 (J) are an anagram of “JOK”, a phonetic version of joke. Mock and joke are similar terms. Letters from bars 2 (K), 4 (L), and 6 (I) produce the anagram “KIL”, a phonetic rendering of kill. It was previously observed that the final letter J is the initial of Jesus. Phonetic anagrams of mock, joke, and kill are relatable to Jesus’ grim fate at Golgotha.
Another interesting anagram produced by letters from bars 2 (K), 3 or 5 (M), 4 (L) and 6 (I) bars is “MILK”. In 1 Peter 2:1-3, the Apostle Peter figuratively likens the Lord to spiritual milk. In 1 Corinthians 3:1-2, the Apostle Paul likens teaching “infants in Christ” to feeding them the milk of sound doctrine. This same analogy recurs in Hebrews 5:12 which admonishes, “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food.” The recurrence of this analogy in the First Epistle to the Corinthians and the Epistle of Hebrews is likely because they were written by the same author.
The “milk” of basic doctrine is shared by Jesus in the four canonical gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Remarkably, four of the plaintext letters (M, L, M, and J) furnish the initials of those four New Testament books. The remaining three plaintext letters (O, K, and I) are an anagram of the Greek word kio (κίω). Strong’s Concordance traces the origins of the verb kineo (κινέω) to kio, a poetic form of eimi (εἰμί). Most of the New Testament was written in Koine Greek. Kio is the first-singular present indicative of the verb “to go.” There is a conspicuous use of that verb in quotations by Elgar in his 1899 program note for the first performance of the Enigma Variations:
It is true that I have sketched for their amusement and mine, the idiosyncrasies of fourteen of my friends, not necessarily musicians; but this is a personal matter, and need not have been mentioned publicly. The Variations should stand simply as a ‘piece’ of music. 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 accumulated an extensive collection of Bibles and theological books. In his essay “Everything I Can Lay My Hands On’: Elgar’s Theological Library” from the July 2003 issue of The Elgar Society Journal, Geoffrey Hodgkins documents an immense assortment of religious texts that populated Elgar’s home library. Based on available records, Hodgkins concludes “. . . there could have been more than one hundred bibles and theological books in Elgar’s collection . . .” Elgar referred to these and other borrowed books to compose the librettos for his sacred choral works and oratorios. Many of these resources were written or edited by Protestant scholars. More than one of these resources undoubtedly furnished the definition of the Greek verb kio.
Elgar’s interest in Protestant editions of the Bible and biblical commentaries spilled over into Protestant music. Professor Charles Edward McGuire of Oberlin College and Conservatory observes “. . . Elgar began distancing himself from elements of Catholicism both in private and public communication for the last three decades of his life.” McGuire further notes that Elgar “. . . publicly presented himself as someone who, though Catholic, could appreciate the art and cultural offerings of Protestants . . .” To drive home that point, McGuire refers to remarks by Elgar to Rudolph de Cordova in the May 1904 issue of The Strand Magazine:
I attended as many of the [Anglican] Cathedral services as I could to hear the anthems, to get to know what they were, so as to become thoroughly acquainted with the English Church style. The putting of the fine organ into the Cathedral at Worcester [1874] was a great event, and brought many organists to play there at various times. I went to hear them all. The services at the Cathedral were over later on Sunday than those at the Catholic church, and as soon as the voluntary there was finished at the church I used to rush over to the Cathedral to hear the concluding voluntary.
As the record shows, Elgar was decidedly ecumenical in his taste for Christian music and literature.
A Pattern of Crosses
Scanning staves horizontally and bars vertically to tabulate note totals from the first six measures of the Enigma Theme in full score generates a grid pattern of crosses. Below is the first page from the orchestral score with four horizontal arrows pointing to the plaintext solutions “LOQX” and “OLJC”, and six vertical arrows pointing to the plaintext “OKMLMIJ/K”.
In the lower lefthand corner of the cross grid, the plaintext spells “LOOK” using the lower two horizontal letters (LO) and first two vertical letters (OK). “LO” is Old English for look and emerges in the decryption of the decryption “LOJC” (Behold Jesus Christ). “LOOK” is flanked by the initials of Jesus Christ (JC) and Martin Luther (ML). Four horizontal lines and six vertical lines hint at the chapter from the Psalm (46) that inspired Ein feste Burg. The horizontal and vertical lines generate 24 crosses pointing to 15 plaintext letters. These sums correspond to the 24 letters from the title of its covert Theme (Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott) and fifteen movements of the Enigma Variations. This pattern of crosses is consistent with other decryptions in these measures that unveil the initials of Jesus, Pilate, Annas, and Caiaphas.
Summation
No rational observer would dispute Elgar’s expertise in cryptography. Bauer makes a compelling case for Elgar’s mastery of secret codes in chapter three of his book Unsolved! Despite that undeniable facet of Elgar’s psychological profile, legacy scholars stubbornly insist that the Enigma Variations are bereft of ciphers. On the contrary, a systematic study of the opening measures from the Enigma Theme uncovered scores of cryptograms within the orchestral score. This essay has shown that those ciphers encode a set of mutually consistent solutions to the core puzzles of the Enigma Variations.
A survey of cryptograms concealed in the opening bars of the Enigma Theme found that they encode a trove of interrelated solutions. Santa made the groundbreaking discovery that the melodic scale degrees in the first bar encode a rounded form of Pi (3.142). Elgar encodes that mathematical constant in several ways in bar 1. Pi is encoded by the first two letters of the dynamic piano that appears four times in that bar. He also encodes in bar 1 the numeric sequence “3-1-4-2” using the fingerings for the first violin part in third position on the D string.
Playing on the third string in third position furnishes two threes, two numerals that mirror Elgar’s initials of two capital cursive Es. Two descending melodic thirds in bar 1 also present two threes, alluding to the number 33 which matches the presumed age of Jesus at his crucifixion. The word third begins with t, a glyph that resembles the cross. Note letters in bar 1 furnish the Italian initials for Jesus Christ (Gesù Cristo), the calendar label BC (Before Christ), the symbol for silver (AG), and the initials for Annas and Caiaphas. Three languages used to label the organ part produce the acrostic anagram “ELI”, the first word of Psalm 22 recited by Jesus on the cross. The dynamic piano in bar 1 provides the initial for Pilate, the Roman governor who sentenced Jesus to a gruesome death.
Two melodic thirds in bar 2 of the Enigma Theme are a coded form of 33, the mirror image of Elgar’s initials and the purported age of Jesus at death. Note letters in measure 2 give the initials for the calendar labels BC and AD (Anno Domini). Years labeled BC progress backward in descending order from highest to lowest. Years labeled AD proceed forward in ascending order from lowest to highest. This divergence is suggestive of Elgar’s unusual contrapuntal mapping of the covert Theme in retrograde over the Enigma Theme. Ein feste Burg plays backward as the Enigma Theme plays forward.
Elgar’s explanatory notes for the Aeolian piano rolls draw special attention to the descending sevenths in the Enigma Theme. The two descending sevenths in bars 3 and 4 encode the number 77. That number is connected to Jesus, the 77th generation from God’s creation of Adam according to Luke’s genealogy. The note letters of the first descending seventh in bar 3 provide the initials for God and Adam. Decrypting the note G as the initial for God is bolstered by the note D that precedes it, for the note sequence “D-G” a reverse phonetic spelling of God (G-d).
The notes of the second descending seventh in bar 4 provide the initials of Firstborn and Gesù, the Italian rendering of Jesus. Letters associated with the second melodic seventh (m7: F-G) furnish the initials of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. The Magi gave Jesus these lavish gifts to celebrate his birth. The melodic notes after the second falling seventh are A and B-flat. The letters A and B with a flat symbol (a lowercase b) are an anagram of “BAb”, a phonetic spelling is Babe. The melodic intervals immediately before each descending seventh are a perfect fourth and a minor sixth. These intervals encode 46, the chapter from the Psalms that inspired Ein feste Burg. The number of bars and notes in the Enigma Theme’s opening two sections (A and B) pinpoint the numbers four and six. Section A has six bars with four melody notes per measure. Section B has four bars with six melody notes per measure. The dynamic in bar 4 is pianissimo (pp), the initials of Pontius Pilate.
A German augmented sixth chord on the downbeat of bar 5 unmasks two critical clues about the covert Theme’s German title with six words. Seven discrete performance directions in the first measure of the Enigma Theme encode the acrostic anagram “EE’s Psalm.” This decryption may be read more fully as “Edward Elgar’s Psalm.” These seven performance directions have precisely 46 characters, a sum that points to Psalm 46. Remarkably, Martin Luther referred to his famous hymn Ein feste Burg as “the 46th Psalm.”
A musical Polybius cipher in bars 1-6 encodes the covert Theme’s 24-letter title (Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott) as a grand anagram with words and phrases spelled in English, Latin, and what Elgar would have reasonably believed is Aramaic. These four languages generate the acrostic anagram “ELGAr” (English, Latin, German, and Aramaic). The solution in bar 1 is “GSUS”, a phonetic spelling of Jesus. Elgar encodes Pi in that same measure. Merging these two decryptions yields “Pi GSUS”, a coded wordplay on “Pie Jesu” which is Latin for “Pious Jesus.” Elgar’s decision to encode “Pi” in the first bar in combination with Jesus alludes to this phrase from the Latin hymn Dies Irae. The encoding of a famous mathematical ratio about circles also deftly hints at the circular communion wafer used in the Eucharist. Elgar wrote four settings of “O Salutaris Hostia” (O Saving Host) before composing the Enigma Variations.
When translated by Morse code, the Enigma Theme’s palindromic rhythm in bars 1-6 generates three statements of “IMMI”. Another set of three statements of “IMMI” is realized in bars 11-16. “IMMI” is a coded form of the enigmatic name “I AM that I AM” (“IM IM”) that God gave for Himself when encountering Moses at the burning bush. Theologians refer to that perplexing title as the Great I AM. God also refers to Himself in the short form as “I AM.” Consequently, six sets of “IMMI” may be decrypted as six statements of “I AM that I AM”, and alternatively, as twelve iterations of “I AM.” Jesus invoked the divine name “I AM” in a confrontation with the Pharisees and Sadducees. Jesus also prefaced seven enigmatic claims about himself beginning with the phrase “I am”. “MI” is the phonetic equivalent of “Am I”, a phrase Jesus used in some of his public discourses and parables. “MI” is also a phonetic version of me, a pronoun Jesus used when he taught his disciples on the eve of his crucifixion to perform the Eucharist “. . . in remembrance of me.”
A conspicuous double bar at the end of bar 6 intimates the presence of a cryptogram. An analysis determined that none of the note totals in any of the four active parts of the string quartet exceeds the number of letters in the standard English alphabet. The application of a basic number-to-letter key (1 = A, 2 = B, 3 = C, etc.) translates these horizontal note totals into the plaintext “LOQX”, a phonetic version of locks. A lock is opened by a key. In its plural form, locks intimates that multiple keys are required to unlock Elgar’s contrapuntal riddle. The discovery of the Locks cipher triggered a reevaluation of the keys used for the Enigma Theme, G minor and G major. The accidentals for those parallel key signatures are B-flat, E-flat, and F-sharp. The letters of those three accidentals are an anagram of “EFB”, the initials of Ein feste Burg. This rather basic cryptogram is called the Enigma Theme Keys cipher. Converting the horizontal note sums from bars 1-6 into their corresponding letters of a backward alphabet (1 = Z, 2 = Y, 3 = X, etc.) generates the plaintext “OLJC”. The letters “OL” are the reverse of “LO”, a biblical word that means to look or behold. The letters “JC” are the initials of Jesus Christ.
This overview concluded with a systematic decryption of the Vertical Note Sums Cipher in the opening six bars of the Enigma Theme. Note sums in bar 1 encode the first word of “O Salutaris Hostia” (O Saving Host). The letter “O” is circular, a trait associated with the mathematical constant Pi also enciphered in bar 1. The glyph “O” is shaped like the communion wafer used to celebrate the Eucharist. Note sums in bars 2 through 4 encode the plaintext “KML”, the abbreviation of the German phrase “Kopiert Martin Luther” (Copied Martin Luther). That statement is a fitting characterization of Elgar’s stealth adoption of Luther’s hymn Ein feste Burg as the principal Theme of the Enigma Variations. Note sums in bars 5 and 6 encode the plaintext “MIJ”. The first two letters are a phonetic realization of “Am I” and may be reversed as “I am.” “J” is the initial for Jesus, the secret friend memorialized in Variation XIII. The plaintext “MI” corresponds to the Morse code transcription of the Enigma Theme’s palindromic rhythm as “IMMI”. The anagram “IMJ” may be decrypted as “I AM Jesus.”
The plaintext “OKMLMIJ” may be reshuffled as “MOMLIKJ”, an anagram that may be decoded as the English phrase “Mom like Jesus.” This coded statement resonates with Elgar’s Roman Catholic worldview. According to church doctrine, Mary and Jesus were the product of Immaculate Conception, maintained Perpetual Virginity, and ascended bodily into heaven. These same letters may be reorganized as the words “MILK” and the Greek word “KIO”. New Testament scriptures refer to basic doctrine as milk. The decryption kio is significant as most of the New Testament was written in Greek. Kio is the first-singular present indicative of the verb “to go”. In his 1899 program note, Elgar employs the verb “goes” to describe how the covert Theme fits with the Enigma Theme and ensuing Variations. Some fragmentary anagrams obtained from the plaintext “OKMLMIJ” are “MOK” (mock), “JOK” (joke), and “KIL” (kill). These terms are connected with the narrative surrounding the arrest, trial, and crucifixion of Jesus.
This overview illustrated how Elgar wove an elaborate tapestry of interlocking cryptograms within the Enigma Variations. These ciphers encode a coherent set of mutually consistent decryptions regarding the covert Theme and secret friend. Some solutions are imprinted with Elgar’s initials or surname. Elements common to many of these cryptograms are his use of acrostics, abbreviations, anagrams, initials, multiple languages, and phonetic spellings. To learn more about the secrets of the Enigma Variations, read my free eBook Elgar’s Enigmas Exposed. Help support and broaden my original research by becoming a sponsor on Patreon.
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