Elgar's Variation XIII Titles Anagam Ciphers

Variation XIII short score sketch

In the early months of that year [1899], Elgar decided to take another house, so he moved to Craeg Lea, Wells Road, Malvern, on 21st March. It will be noticed, no doubt, that the mind which turned Jaeger into Nimrod, the daughter from Caroline Alice into Carice, and so on, once more exercised its ingenuity upon the name of his house, which is an anagram constructed from the names of all the people who lived in it, i.e., Carice, Alice, Edward, ELGAR.

William H. Reed in The Master Musicians: Elgar

The British composer Edward Elgar reveled in phonetic spellings, wordplays, and anagrams. One notable example is the title “Craeg Lae” which he gave to his Malvern home where his family resided between 1899 and 1904. That strange moniker is an anagram obtained from the reverse spelling of “Elgar” (Craeg Lea) merged with the initials from the first names of his daughter Carice, his wife Alice, and himself (Craeg Lea). Elgar challenged Rosa Burley to decipher the meaning of his home’s bemusing name. She caught on quickly as recounted in her memoir:

Edward called the place Craeg Lea and challenged me to guess how he had found the name. By some stroke of luck, I realized that the key lay in the unusual spelling of “Craeg” and immediately saw that the thing had been built up anagrammatically from (A)lice, (C)arice, (E)dward ELGAR. I think he was a little annoyed that this mystification had fallen flat.

Elgar’s enthusiasm for word games spilled over into the field of cryptography, the discipline of coding and decoding secret messages. His obsession with that esoteric art receives a full chapter in Craig P. Bauer’s treatise Unsolved! The bulk of its third chapter is devoted 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 pleased with his solution that he mentions it in his first biography published in 1905 by Robert J. Buckley. Elgar painted the solution in black paint on a wooden box, an appropriate medium as another name for the Polybius checkerboard is a box cipher.

Elgar’s methodical decryption of Schooling’s conundrum is summarized on a set of nine index cards. On the sixth card, Elgar relates the task of cracking the cipher to “. . . working (in the dark).”

His use of the word “dark” as a synonym for a cipher is apposite to this investigation because this same adjective turns up later in Elgar’s 1899 program note for the premiere of the Enigma Variations. It is an oft-cited passage that warrants revisiting as he lays the groundwork for his threefold riddle:

The Enigma I will not explain – it’s ‘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 composed the Enigma Variations in 1898-99. That extraordinary work elevated him from provincial obscurity to international acclaim, transforming his career from an itinerant music teacher to a celebrated composer. The original title appears on the autograph score as “Variations for orchestra composed by Edward Elgar Op. 36”. With the unconventional theme dubbed “Enigma,” the work is popularly referred to as the Enigma Variations. In the 1899 program note and other primary sources, Elgar explained the Theme is called “Enigma” because it is a counterpoint to a famous melody that is not heard but can play “through and over” the Variations. This absent tune is the cornerstone underlying the whole work, a subject that has provoked a prolonged debate about what could possibly be the correct melodic solution.

Some contend there is no answer by insinuating Elgar concocted the notion of an absent principal Theme as an afterthought, practical joke, or marketing ploy. Others take Elgar at his word and accept the challenge that there is a famous melody lurking behind the Variations’ contrapuntal and modal facade. Regardless of what side is taken in this debate, conventional scholarship stalwartly maintains the solution cannot be known absolutely because Elgar allegedly took his secret to the grave in February 1934. They insist Elgar never wrote down the answer for posterity to discover. Such a viewpoint glosses over or completely ignores Elgar’s documented obsession with cryptography. This incontestable fact raises the possibility that the solution is conveniently encoded within the score of the Enigma Variations.

A decade of trawling that sublime symphonic masterpiece has netted over one hundred cryptograms in diverse forms that encode a set of mutually consistent and complementary solutions. Although that figure may seem extravagant, it is entirely consistent with Elgar’s lifelong obsession for ciphers. More significantly, the solutions give 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 Martin Luther. What is Elgar’s “dark saying” ensconced within the Enigma Theme? Answer: A musical Polybius box cipher embedded in its inaugural six bars cordoned off by an oddly placed double barline. Who is the secret friend and inspiration behind Variation XIII? Answer: Jesus Christ, the Savior of Elgar’s Roman Catholic faith. The cryptographic evidence supporting these discoveries is diverse, complementary, and decisive.

My research continues to unveil more ciphers in Elgar’s orchestral homage to cryptography. One revealing example of Elgar’s affinity for acrostic anagrams is found in the first bar of the Enigma Theme. In that measure, Elgar wrote seven discrete performance directions. The first letters of those musical terms are an acrostic anagram of “EE’s Psalm.” The dual Es are Elgar’s initials. “Psalm” in the singular refers to a chapter in the Book of Psalms. But which chapter? Elgar’s cryptogram has precisely 46 characters, a figure that implicates Psalm 46. That chapter is known as “Luther’s Psalm” because it inspired the hymn Ein feste Burg. In the very first bar of the Enigma Theme, Elgar enciphered the answer to his melodic riddle with an elegant acrostic anagram that he initialed in code to authenticate the unexpected answer.

Variation XIII Titles Anagram Ciphers

With so many ciphers woven into the fabric of the Enigma Variations, it would be prudent to sift the title of Variation XIII for other ciphers. A key rationale for this investigative track is that a meticulous cryptanalysis of the autograph score’s title page turned up scores of acrostic anagrams. Their decryptions affirm Ein feste Burg as the covert Theme and Jesus Christ as the secret friend depicted in Variation XIII. Below is the first page of the earliest known short score sketch of Variation XIII:

Variation XIII short score sketch

Scanning from left to right, Elgar’s original title consists of “XXX” in blue pencil followed by “Var.” in black ink and a prominent capital “L” in blue pencil. “Var.” is an abbreviation for Variation. The Gospel accounts report Jesus was brutally beaten by his captors on the night of his arrest. In a symbolic gesture, Elgar wrote the original title of Variation XIII in black and blue, the hues of a brutal bruising. The prominent letter “L” is a homonym of “El” (אל), the Hebrew word for “God.” It forms the first part of such Biblical titles as El Shaddai which translates as “God Almighty.” The initials of the three title elements in Variation XIII (“XXX Var. L”) produce a reverse acrostic of “LVX.” The letters U and V are the same in the Medieval Latin alphabet, a fact that equates “LVX” in Latin with “LUX” which means light. This decryption reflects Elgar’s education at three different Roman Catholic schools where he studied Latin and attended Latin Mass.

Variation XIII short score acrostic anagram "LVX" (LUX) cipher

Why would Elgar encode that Latin word “LUX” in the original title of Variation XIII? The answer rests in a sacred oratorio he wrote in 1896 about Jesus miraculously restoring the sight of a man born blind as documented in the Gospel of John. Elgar gave his first attempt at that genre the title Lux Christi (Light of Christ). However, the title was modified to The Light of Life at the behest of his publisher, Novello, to avoid offending Anglican sensibilities. Shortly after completing the Enigma Variations, Elgar revised Lux Christi a few months before commencing his magnum opus, The Dream of Gerontius. Recognizing Elgar’s prior use of the Latin word for light in the title of a sacred oratorio about Jesus makes the acrostic anagram “LUX” an irradiant clue regarding the identity of Elgar’s secret friend. This coded message is imbued with a discernable theological pedigree. “The light” is a title Jesus repeatedly ascribed to himself in John 8:12. In that passage, Christ called himself “the light of the world” and “the light of life.” This quotation is the source for Novello’s alternative title for Lux Christi.

Elgar replaced the Xs on the autograph score with hexegrammatic asterisks. Their distinct silhouettes are retained on the published score and replicate the Star of David.

Autograph score heading for Variation XIII

Published score title for Variation XIII

There are multifaceted connections between Jesus and King David, a talented musician and celebrated slayer of the giant Goliath. Jesus descended from David and was born in Bethlehem, the City of David. One of the more popular titles for Jesus in the Gospel accounts is “Son of David” in recognition of his royal lineage. The Gospel of Matthew records that Jesus was called “Son of David” no less than seven times (see Matthew 1:1, 9:27, 12:23, 15:22, 20:30, 21:5, and 21:9). Elgar’s hexegrammatic asterisks are a twinkling hint about the identity of his secret friend. As previously observed, the short score title for Variation XIII encodes the Latin word for light (LUX) as an acrostic anagram. No wonder Elgar later replaced the three Xs with three stars, for stars give off light.

There is other corroborating cryptographic evidence affirming Jesus as the secret friend commemorated in Variation XIII. Elgar cleverly enciphered the initials for Jesus Christ in the title of Variation XIII using an elementary number-to-letter key (1 = A, 2 = B, 3= C, etc.). “X” is the number ten, and the tenth letter of the alphabet is J. “III” represents three, and the third letter is C. The Roman numerals XIII are a coded version of the initials for Jesus Christ. For those who doubt the simplicity and efficacy of this solution, consider that Elgar deployed the same cipher key with Variation IX (Nimrod) to encode the initials for his German friend August Jaeger. The Roman numeral “I” converts to the first letter of the alphabet (A), and “X” to the tenth (J). Just in case anyone failed to recognize the identity of Nimrod, Elgar enciphered Jaeger’s initials in the Roman numerals “IX” for his noble variation.

It has been shown how Elgar enciphered the first word of Lux Christi as an acrostic anagram within the title of his earliest short score sketch of Variation XIII. Is there evidence that he also encoded the second word Christi? Elgar seasoned his correspondence with phonetic spellings. Some specimens of his 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)

The final item on the above list (Xti) is a phonetic realization of Christi. Remarkably, two of the three letters from “Xti” appear in the Roman numerals XIII. When (***) is realized as “Three asterisks,” the absent T is conveniently given by the initial for “Three.”

1. XIII.
2. Three asterisks
3. Romanza

This is one example of an adjacent title letters anagram cipher. The titles of the movements for the Enigma Variations abound with proximate title letter anagrams. For example, neighboring letters in the titles of Variations I, II, and III produce an acrostic anagram of “CHRISTI” as shown by the highlighted text below:

An early breakthrough in 2013 first revealed the meaning and significance of the three asterisks (***) in the cryptic title of Variation XIII. It was determined those absent letters are ingeniously encoded by the first initials from the titles of the adjoining movements. The first initials from Variations XII (B.G.N.) and XIV (E.D.U. and Finale) are an acrostic anagram of the initials for Ein feste Burg. Elgar deftly frames the question posed by the three asterisks with the answer hidden in plain view.

Elgar experimented with five different lists of the Enigma Variations. In retrospect, his experimentation with the order was done to construct numerous proximate title letters anagrams. Such a possibility eluded deluded scholars like Julian Rushton who irrationally speculated that Elgar lacked the time to construct any cryptograms. The historic timeline quickly disproves such a misguided notion. Elgar began openly composing the Enigma Variations in earnest on the evening of October 21, 1898. He completed the preliminary orchestration on February 19, 1899. This process consumed 121 days. Between June 30 and July 20, 1899, Elgar appended 96 bars to Variation XIV. This added an extra 21 days to the prior 121 for a grand total of 142, a period that afforded more than sufficient time and opportunity for Elgar to indulge his passion for cryptography. Why tenured scholars such as Rushton blithely dismissed the very real prospect of cryptograms in Elgar’s Variations is exceedingly enigmatic.

Did Elgar also encode the initial “C” for Christi in Variation XIII? His use of an elementary number-to-letter key draws attention to the number three because “C” is the third letter of the alphabet. Variation XIII places a subtle yet noticeable emphasis on the number three. It is a building block (III) of the Roman numerals XIII. There are three elements in the short score title consisting of 7 characters:

1. XXX
2. Var.
3. L

Similarly, there are three parts in the title of the published orchestral score made up of 17 characters:

1. XIII.
2. (***)
3. Romanza

The number of mysterious asterisks further highlights the number three. Variation XIII harbors three quotations from a subordinate theme in Felix Mendelssohn’s concert overture Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage (Meeresstille und glückliche Fahrt). Set in the keys of A-flat major and E-flat major, those three melodic quotations are enclosed by conspicuous double quotation marks on the full score. There is a fourth incipit in F minor lacking quotation marks because it departs from the native major mode. In all, there are three Mendelsson quotations each consisting of three discrete notes with a total of four fragments presented in three contrasting keys. The prevalence of the number three in the Mendelssohn fragments is ineluctable and significant.

Why would Elgar subtly emphasize the number three in Variation XIII? Applying a number-to-letter key to that numeral generates the letter C, the initial for Christ. This same initial is also intimated by Elgar’s sonic portrayal of a calm sea via the Mendelssohn quotations because the word “sea” is a homonym of the letter C. The Mendelssohn fragments portray a sea crossing, an apt symbol of the cross associated with Christ’s passage from life to death. Three Mendelsson quotations symbolizing the “deathly stillness” of a calm sea may be reasonably interpreted as a theological allusion to the Sign of Jonah when Jesus analogized being entombed for three days and nights to the plight of the prophet Jonah who spent three days and nights in the belly of a great fish. The acrostic anagram “LVX” on the original short score sketch of Variation XIII hints at a cross because the word “acrostic” begins with what sounds like the phrase “a cross.” Indeed, the Enigma Variations hosts numerous allusions to the cross. For instance, the Roman numerals XIII resemble the cross and three nails as seen on the official seal of the Jesuits. Elgar dedicated the bulk of his major sacred works to God by inscribing the initials of the Jesuit motto, “Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam” (For the greater glory of God).

Jesuit Monogram

An overlapping explanation for Elgar’s emphasis on the number three in Variation XIII is his Roman Catholic embrace of the Trinity. This doctrine holds that God is one and exists as three coeternal and consubstantial persons. Cryptographic evidence for this conclusion is found in the opening bars of Variation XIII. That movement begins at Rehearsal 55 with a phonetic spelling of God with the melodic line “G-D.” Starting six bars after Rehearsal 55, Elgar states the melodic sequence “G-D” three times with the first two played in unison by the principal flute and oboe. Elgar reprises these identical melodic note patterns later in the movement at Rehearsal 58.

The Mendelssohn fragments in Variation XIII portray a ship crossing a calm sea. This sonic symbolism was inspired by the poetry of the famed German playwright Goethe whose seemingly benign image of a boat adrift on a windless sea depicts the stillness of death (Todestille). Goethe’s poetry served as the inspiration behind Mendelssohn’s concert overture by the same title that is anomalously cited four times by Elgar. Buried in the lowest staff of the score, the contrabass section performs the consecutive notes “D-E-A-D” twice. The first instance begins four bars after Rehearsal 55, and the second case starts four bars after Rehearsal 59. The subtle emphasis on the number three that permeates Variation XIII is tied to Christ’s death because Roman Catholic tradition holds he was crucified at age 33. Some contemporary biblical scholars such as Michael Rood, author of The Chronological Gospels, present compelling evidence and analysis that Jesus started his 70-week ministry as he approached age 29 and was crucified just over a year later at age 30.

The specter of death casts an ominous shadow over the Enigma Variations. In the original program note for the 1899 premiere of the Enigma Variations, Elgar likens the absent principal Theme to the mysterious protagonist who never appears on stage in dramas by the Belgian playwright, Maeterlinck. That absent character is death, a central element in Maeterlinck's works which are called “marionette” plays because the characters are mainly immobile. The silent principal Theme is evocative of a passage from Psalm 37:17 that mentions the silence of the grave. There was an indelible link between music and death in Elgar’s mind because he studied musical scores during his youth at a local churchyard while resting on a tombstone. The Mendelssohn fragments that symbolize the deathly stillness of a calm sea are tied to this undercurrent of death that permeates the Enigma Variations.

Beyond their overt symbolism, the Mendelssohn fragments also harbor beneath mere surface impressions a broad array of interrelated cryptograms. Among the simplest is the FAE Cipher. The Mendelssohn fragments are performed in the keys of A-flat major, F minor, and E-flat major. Those three key letters are an anagram of the initials for Joseph Joachim’s romantic motto, “Frei aber einsam” (Free but lonely). Joachim was a famous violinist who was mentored by Mendelssohn. “FAE” is a musical cryptogram that serves as a unifying motif in the F-A-E Violin Sonata composed in 1851 by Robert Schumann, Albert Dietrich, and Johannes Brahms. Something so obvious as the FAE cryptogram should not have escaped the notice of professional musicians and scholars. In a superb display of concealment, Elgar hid his FAE cryptogram in plain sight. Goethe intoned, “The hardest thing to see is what is in front of your eyes.” Jesus admonished his followers, “Having eyes do you not see, and having ears, do you not hear?” Although born Jewish, Mendelssohn and Joachim were baptized Lutherans. These commonalities furnish massive clues about the composer of the covert Theme as well as the ethnicity and Christian faith of Elgar’s secret friend.

Another example of a secret code nestled within the Mendelssohn fragments is the Scale Degrees Cipher that encodes the initials of Ein feste Burg. The first step to decode this cryptogram is to identify how many times a fragment is stated in a particular key. There are two incipits in A-flat major, one in F minor, and one in E-flat major. The second step is to convert each sum into the scale degree of the corresponding key. Two Mendelsson quotations in A-flat major pinpoints the second scale degree (B-flat) of that mode. One Mendelssohn fragment in F minor implicates the first scale degree (F) of that key. One Mendelssohn quotation in E-flat major identifies the first scale degree (E-flat). Strip away the accidentals from those three notes (BFE), and what remains is an anagram of “EFB,” the initials of Ein feste Burg. The solution to the absent letters represented by the three cryptic asterisks (***) is the initials of the absent Theme.

Replacing the asterisks (***) with the missing initials (EFB) in the title of the published full score yields the following three components:

1. XIII.
2. (EFB)
3. Romanza

The first letters of those three title elements generate an acrostic anagram of REX, Latin for “King.” At the crucifixion of Christ, his crime was emblazoned on a placard that declared in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” The inscription in Latin reads as, “IESVS NAZARENVS REX IVDÆORVM.” Notice that the third word in that phrase is “REX.” In Western depictions of the crucifixion, this sign is often reduced to the initials “INRI” and displayed on a parchment or placard just above the head of Christ.

The Mond Crucifixion by Raphael

Encoded in the published title of Variation XIII is a keyword (REX) from Christ’s death warrant. It was previously observed how Elgar encoded “LUX” in the short score title of Variation XIII via an acrostic anagram. The words “LUX” and “REX” are part of Longfellow’s Cross popularized in The Golden Legend by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

There is credible evidence that Elgar enciphered the words of Longfellow’s cross within the concluding titles of the Enigma Variations. Elgar’s mother, Ann, nurtured a reverence for Longfellow by reading his poetry and prose to her children during childhood. She instilled in Elgar a lifelong love for that American linguist, Harvard scholar, celebrated author, and Christian poet. Elgar’s librettos for The Black Knight, Rondel, Scenes from the Saga of King Olaf, The Apostles, and The Kingdom reflect Longfellow’s enduring influence. Soon after the June 1899 premiere of the Enigma Variations, Elgar added 96 bars to Variation XIV because Hans Richter and Jaeger advised the last movement ended too abruptly. At the conclusion of this extended Finale, Elgar penned the beginning of the final stanza (XIV) from Longfellow’s poem “Elegiac Verse” from In the Harbor (1882): “Great is the art of beginning, but greater the art is of ending.” Elgar gave a copy of Longfellow’s novel Hyperion to Hans Richter in gratitude for conducting the first performance of the Enigma Variations.

Western portrayals of the crucifixion often include a titulus, a sign above Christ’s head with the acronym “INRI.” It is feasible to reconstruct the initials “INRI” from the title of Variation XIII. In the following exhibit, red lines connecting the necessary letters to spell “INRI” symbolically produce a cross:

The original short score sketch of Variation XIII has a revealing note sequence 24 bars into that movement. At that juncture, the melody line consists of E-flat followed by B played simultaneously with an F. Those three notes are the initials of Ein feste Burg. In a telling omission, Elgar dispensed with the B natural in the published score. He dare not risk making the answer too obvious by working the initials into one of the clarinet solo passages beginning with an anomalous Mendelssohn quotation. As described earlier, the initials “EFB” are also enciphered by the Letters Cluster Cipher and the Mendelssohn Fragments Scale Degrees Cipher.

Variation XIII short score "EFB" notes cipher

Four languages are associated with the construction of the acrostic anagram ciphers in the short score and published titles of Variation XIII:

1. Latin (The Roman numerals XIII and “LVX” and “REX”)
2. Italian (Romanza)
3. English (“Var.” for Variation)
4. German (“EFB” for Ein feste Burg)

The initials from those four languages generate the acrostic anagram “LIEG,” a truncated spelling of Liege. That 14th-century title may be fully realized as “LIEGE” with the addition of a second E. This extra E is suggested by Elgar’s initials (EE). The phonetic realization as “LIEG” is sufficient as he employed phonetic spellings in his correspondence. The word liege means king and lord. These synonyms are apt theological characterizations of Jesus who is called “King of kings and Lord of lords” in Revelation 19:16. This ancillary acrostic anagram was only unmasked after successfully decoding the three asterisks (EFB) and the acrostic anagrams (LUX, XTI, & REX) embedded within the titles of the short score and publish score. Only a highly skilled cryptographer could have conceived of such an intricate series of interlocking ciphers. To learn more about the secrets of the Enigma Variations, read my free eBook Elgar’s Enigmas Exposed.

Soli Yah Gloria

Elgar's Variation XIII REX Cipher

Jesu Rex Gloræ.

(Jesus, King of Glory)

From the Catholic Litany of the Holy Name of Jesus

The British Romantic composer Edward Elgar was obsessed with cryptography, the discipline of coding and decoding secret messages. His interest in that esoteric art merits an entire chapter in Craig P. Bauer’s treatise Unsolved! Much of the third chapter is devoted to Elgar’s brilliant decryption of an allegedly insoluble Nihilist cipher presented by John Holt Schooling in the April 1896 issue of The Pall Mall Magazine. A Nihilist cipher is a derivative of the Polybius square. Elgar was so delighted with his solution to Schooling’s reputedly impenetrable code that he brags about it in his first biography published in 1905 by Robert J. Buckley. Elgar painted his decryption in black paint on a wooden box, an appropriate symbol as another name for the Polybius square is a box cipher. Elgar’s detailed decryption of the six-word solution — “He who fears is half dead” — is summarized on a set of nine index cards.

A decade of concerted analysis of the symphonic Enigma Variations has netted over ninety cryptograms in diverse formats. These ciphers encode a set of mutually consistent and complementary solutions that furnish 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 foundation of the ensuing movements? Answer: Ein feste Burg (A Mighty Fortress) by Martin Luther. What is Elgar’s “dark saying” nestled within the Enigma Theme? Answer: A musical Polybius box cipher embedded 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 and the subject of his first sacred oratorio, The Light of Life (Lux Christi).

Variation XIII is undoubtedly the most unconventional of the movements from the Enigma Variations. Its title of three mysterious asterisks enclosed by parentheses is followed by the subtitle Romanza. This movement harbors no discernable melodic connection to the Enigma Theme, prompting Francis Donald Tovey to classify it as a “free episode . . . the most romantic thing in the world.” Instead, it features four melodic incipits of a subordinate theme from the concert overture Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage (Meeresstille und glückliche Fahrt) by Felix Mendelssohn. This sea change represents a significant departure from all of the other movements. An influential early Romantic composer of the German School, Mendelssohn generated renewed interest in Bach’s music with a performance of the St. Matthew Passion in 1829. He also founded the Leipzig Conservatory in 1843. Elgar desperately wanted to attend that prestigious institution but lacked the funds to pursue his dream.

As I scrutinized Variation XIII, I stumbled on an elementary acrostic cipher embedded within its cryptic title. It is embarrassing to admit that it eluded my notice until now. The title page of Variation XIII from the published orchestral score appears below:

The title consists of the following three elements:

1. XIII.
2. (✡ ✡ ✡)
3. Romanza.

It was previously determined that the Roman numerals are an elementary number-to-letter cipher that encodes the initials for Elgar's secret friend. X is the number ten, and the tenth letter of the alphabet is J. III stands for three, and the third letter is C. Consequently, the Roman numeral XIII is a coded version of the initials for Jesus Christ. That is an unsurprising decryption for a Roman Catholic who composed such sacred oratorios as The Light of Life (Lux Christi) and The Dream of Gerontius. Elgar employed the same technique with Variation IX to encipher the initials for August Jaeger, his friend at Novello whom he adroitly nicknamed Nimrod.

As the Roman numerals XIII encode the initials for Elgar's not-so-secret friend, what could be the meaning of the three cryptic asterisks? Those missing letters are cleverly encoded by the first initials of the titles from the adjoining movements. The first initials from the titles of Variations XII (B) and XIV (E, and F) are an acrostic anagram of the initials for the covert Theme (Ein feste Burg). Elgar deftly frames the question posed by the three asterisks with the answer hidden in plain view. This acrostic anagram ensconced within the titles of Variations XII and XIV is an elementary cryptogram dubbed the Letters Cluster Cipher. The numbers 12 and 14 are interesting because their corresponding first and second digits may be paired off to form the numbers 11 and 24. There are 11 discrete letters and a total of 24 letters in the covert Theme’s complete six-word title, Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott. 

Elgar experimented with five different orderings of the movements for the Variations, something that in retrospect was done to construct this ingenious cipher. Such a possibility eludes scholars like Julian Rushton who irrationally speculate that Elgar lacked the time to construct any cryptograms. Elgar began openly composing the Enigma Variations in earnest on October 21, 1898. He completed the orchestration on February 19, 1899. This process consumed 121 days, a period that afforded more than enough time and opportunity for Elgar to indulge his passion for cryptography. How Rushton recast a four-month period into a three-day window for cryptograms is a genuine enigma.

Prior research also found that the Mendelssohn fragments encode the same three letters disclosed by the Letters Cluster Cipher. This cryptogram relies on the number of times a Mendelssohn fragment is stated in a given key to pinpoint the corresponding scale degree of that mode, unveiling the solution letter. Two Mendelssohn quotations in A-flat major implicate the second scale degree of that key which is B-flat. One Mendelssohn fragment in F minor indicates the first scale degree of that mode, the tonic note F. There is one final Mendelssohn quotation in E-flat major, and the first scale degree of that key is E-flat. The note letters enciphered by the Mendelssohn Fragments Scale Degrees Cipher are in order of appearance B, F, and E. That is the reverse order of the initials for Ein feste Burg. This cryptogram is known as the Mendelssohn Fragments Scale Degrees Cipher.

Why would Elgar encipher the initials of the covert Theme backward within the Mendelssohn fragments? An ostinato figure that reprises the Enigma Theme’s palindromic rhythm accompanies those seemingly extraneous incipits, suggesting a link between the two disparate themes. The encoding by the Mendelssohn fragments of the hidden melody’s initials in reverse order above an Enigma-like ostinato intimates a retrograde mapping of the secret tune above the Enigma Theme. Such an insight is vital to decoding Elgar’s contrapuntal mapping of Ein feste Burg above the Enigma Theme. Just as the initials of the absent Theme are spelled backward via the Mendelssohn fragments, so too is the covert Theme played backward “through and over” the Enigma Theme.

Now reconsider the three-part title from Variation XIII with the absent letters denoted by the asterisks filled in. Their first letters are a reverse acrostic of “REX”, the Latin word for king. That same word — Rex  — is also enciphered by proximate title letters in Variations XIII and XIV. Elgar was very familiar with the Latin language. Between 1863 and 1872, he was educated at three different Roman Catholic schools where he received instruction in Latin and regularly attended the Latin Mass.

1. XIII.
2. (EFB)
3. Romanza.

Just as the initials “EFB” are enciphered in reverse order by the Mendelssohn fragments, so too are the letters for “REX” as an acrostic by the three-part title. This consistency is supportive of a deliberate design. The sum of characters in the Roman numerals is five including the period. The same holds true for the second title element with three asterisks enclosed by two parentheses. These two title elements with five characters each suggest a coded version of Elgar’s initials because the fifth letter of the alphabet is E. Elgar routinely initialed his correspondence “EE” in place of his name. A discrete subset of cryptograms within the Variation bears his duplicate initials. One example is an acrostic anagram formed by the seven performance directions in the Enigma Theme’s opening measure that enciphers “EE’s Psalm.” There are 46 characters in those performance directions that implicate Psalm 46, the chapter that supplies the title for Luther’s greatest hymn.

A sign was displayed at the crucifixion of Jesus to advertise his capital offense or Titulus Crucis. It was written in three languages: Hebrew, Latin, and Greek. The Latin version “IESVS NAZARENVS REX IVDÆORVM” translates into English as “Jesus the Nazarene King of the Jews.” REX is the third word on Jesus' death warrant. One of his many biblical titles is “King of Kings.” At his crucifixion, Jesus wore a crown of thorns. The identity of his barbaric executioners is blatantly announced by the subtitle Romanza with its first two syllables pronounced like Romans. Goethe's “deathly stillness” (Todesstille), poetically symbolized by a calm sea and sonically depicted by the Mendelssohn fragments, alludes to the death of Elgar's special friend. There is a symbolic oceanic connection to the crucifixion of Christ who likened his death and resurrection to the Sign of Jonah, a prophet who spent three days and nights in the belly of a “great fish.” The Roman numerals for Christ’s movement conveniently furnish the cross (X) and three nails (III), prominent hallmarks of the Jesuit Christogram. Elgar wrote the initials (A. M. D. G.) of the Jesuit motto “Ad majórem Dei glóriam” as a dedication for his major oratorios such as The Dream of Gerontius, The Apostles, and The Kingdom.

Other cryptograms implicate the death of Jesus in Variation XIII such as the Dead G-D Cipher. Symbolically buried in the lowest staff of the full score in Variation XIII, the bass section plays the notes D-E-A-D four measures after Rehearsal 55 and a second time four bars after Rehearsal 59. Incredibly, the bass part literally spells out what Elgar symbolically portrays with the conspicuous Mendelssohn fragments. Variation XIII is framed in the key of G major. The discrete notes in Elgar’s spelling of “dead” are D, E, and A. In the key of G major, the scale degrees of D, E, and A are 5, 6, and 2, respectively. When those three scale degrees are converted into their corresponding letters in the alphabet using a simple number-to-letter key, they become E, F, and B. The initials of the secret melody are encoded in order by the DEAD Notes Scale Degrees Cipher. Those letters are the initials in order for the covert Theme, Ein feste Burg. The name of Elgar’s special friend who died and rose from the grave is cited in the second stanza of Luther’s renowned hymn about Him.

On the heels of each spelling of “dead” in the bass line, the identity of who died is answered by the flute, oboe, and clarinet. Six bars after Rehearsal 55, the principal flute and principal oboe play in unison a G followed by D. Seven bars after Rehearsal 55, the principal clarinet repeats that same melodic sequence for a third time. This same pattern is reiterated six and seven bars after Rehearsal 59. Elgar’s answer to the question of who died is G-D, a common phonetic spelling of God. Three melodic note sequences of G-D intimate the Trinity with two overlapping to suggest God the Father and his earthly incarnation, God the Son. Elgar’s Roman Catholic faith leaves only one credible candidate for a God who died: Jesus Christ. Elgar raises a question by encoding the word DEAD in the lowest part of the score and then answers it in the three highest staves with three codes references to G-D. The use of three different woodwinds to spell out a phonetic rendition of “God” in the top three staves of the score is a transparent Trinitarian allusion.

The overt and covert titles of Variation XIII are a reverse acrostic spelling of REX, the Latin word for King. That is the third Latin word on the sign displayed at the crucifixion of Christ, the friend commemorated in that movement. One of his unique scriptural titles is “King of Kings.” Other ciphers in Variation XIII encode the initials of the covert Theme, Ein feste Burg. The reverse decryption of Mendelssohn Fragments Scale Degrees Cipher as “BFE” alludes to a retrograde counterpoint of the clandestine Theme over the Enigma Theme. The scale degrees of the unique notes in the DEAD Notes Cipher also encipher the initials for the covert Theme in order as “EFB.” These decryptions of diverse but mutually consistent cryptograms within Variation XIII are dead right. To learn more about the secrets of the Enigma Variations, read my free eBook Elgar’s Enigmas Exposed. Please help support and expand my original research by becoming a sponsor on Patreon.

Soli Yah Gloria

Stained glass window of Christ the King

Tipperary, Ireland

"DEAD" Ciphers In Elgar's Enigma Variations

Cracking a difficult cipher is akin to climbing a sheer cliff face: The cryptanalyst is seeking any nook or cranny that could provide the slightest foothold.

Simon Singh in The Code Breakers

The British Romantic composer Edward Elgar was obsessed with cryptography, the discipline of coding and decoding secret messages. His interest in that esoteric art merits an entire chapter in Craig P. Bauer’s treatise Unsolved! Much of the third chapter is devoted to Elgar’s brilliant decryption of an allegedly insoluble Nihilist cipher conveyed by John Holt Schooling in the April 1896 issue of The Pall Mall Magazine. Elgar was so delighted with his solution to Schooling’s reputedly insoluble cipher that he mentions it in his first biography published in 1905 by Robert J. Buckley. Elgar painted his decryption in black paint on a wooden box, an appropriate symbol as another name for the Polybius checkerboard is a box cipher. The six-word solution — “He who fears is half dead” — is summarized on a set of nine index cards.

A decade of concerted analysis of the symphonic Enigma Variations has netted over eighty cryptograms in diverse formats. These ciphers encode a set of mutually consistent and complementary solutions that furnish 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 foundation of the ensuing movements? Answer: Ein feste Burg (A Mighty Fortress) by Martin Luther. What is Elgar’s “dark saying” ensconced within the Enigma Theme? Answer: A musical Polybius box cipher embedded 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 Double Barlines “Dead” Cipher

A conspicuous feature of some cryptograms in the Enigma Variations is their proximity to double barlines, particularly those situated in unexpected or unusual places. A double bar signifies the end of a section or movement. The Enigma Theme has an oddly placed double bar line at the end of measure 6. The presence of a double bar line so close to the beginning of a movement is clearly anomalous. This condition also applies to the first bridge passage framed by an end bar line at the start of bar 18 and a double bar line at the end of bar 19. A section in classical music that smoothly transitions one movement into another is known as a bridge passage. The first bridge passage forms the concluding phrase of the iconic Enigma Theme. It begins at Rehearsal 2 and precedes Variation I (C. A. E.). It is highly unusual to observe two double bar lines and one end barline in less than twenty measures.

In all, there are three double barlines in the Enigma Theme. The first is a double bar between measures 6 and 7 that marks the end of Section A and the start of Section B. The next is an end barline between measures 17 and 18 that separates Section A’ from the bridge passage identified as Section C. The third is located between measures 19 and 20 to demarcate the Enigma Theme’s elaborated ending phrase from the start of Variation I. In all, there are three double barlines in the Enigma Theme with two double bars and one end bar. The three double barlines in the Enigma Theme correspond to the same number of bridge passages in the Enigma Variations and Mendelssohn quotations in Variation XIII.

There is an intriguing cryptogram formed by the three double barlines in the Enigma Theme. It is based on their first letters in order of appearance: Double, End, and Double. These three initials are an exact match for those at the beginning of the six-word dedication to the Enigma Variations, “Dedicated to my Friends pictured within.” The letters ded are an acronym for dedicated. Built within this solution is ED, a short form of Edward. Like a variety of other cryptograms in the Enigma Variations, Elgar signed the decryption.

It is far more significant that ded is a phonetic rendering of dead. This reading is warranted by Elgar’s personal correspondence that features inventive phonetic spellings. A coded reference to death intersects perfectly with the Mendelssohn quotations in Variation XIII that symbolize the “deathly stillness” of a calm sea. The implication of these quotations is that Elgar’s secret friend had died, a conclusion supported by the discovery that Elgar’s secret friend is Jesus, the Lord and Savior of his Roman Catholic faith. The numbering of fourteen of the Variations with Roman numerals I through XIV hints at the fourteen stations of the cross. There are precisely 33 characters in all of the Roman numerals for these fourteen movements. According to Roman Catholic tradition, Jesus was 33 years old when he traversed those fourteen stations of the cross on his way to Golgotha.

There are overt and covert references to death in the Enigma Variations. The silence of the principal Theme is evocative of a passage from Psalm 37:17 that mentions the silence of the grave. For Elgar, there was an indelible link between music and death because, in his youth, he studied musical scores at a local churchyard while resting on a tombstone. In the original program note for the 1899 premiere of the Enigma Variations, Elgar likens the absent principal Theme to the mysterious protagonist who never appears on stage in dramas by the Belgian playwright, Maeterlinck. That absent character is death, a central element in Maeterlinck’s works characterized as “marionette” plays as the cast members rarely move.

In Variation XIII, Elgar repeatedly quotes a fragment from Mendelssohn’s concert overture Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage (Meeresstille und glückliche Fahrt) to portray a ship crossing the open sea. This sonic symbolism was inspired by the poetry of the famed German playwright Goethe whose seemingly benign image of a boat adrift on a windless sea depicts the stillness of death (Todesstille). Goethe’s poetry served as the inspiration behind Mendelssohn’s concert overture by the same title that is anomalously cited four times by Elgar as four-note incipits. Buried in the lowest staff of the score, the bass section performs the consecutive notes “D-E-A-D” four measures after Rehearsal 55 (bars 496-497), and a second time four measures after Rehearsal 59 (bars 528-529).

“D-E-A-D” spelled by the double bass line in bars 496-497

“D-E-A-D” spelled by the double bass line in bars 528-529.

The bass line literally spells out what Elgar sonically portrays through the Mendelssohn fragments. The discovery of this cryptogram sparked the detection and decryption of another related cipher. Variation XIII is set in the key of G major. The melodic intervals of the notes D, E, and A are 5, 6, and 2 respectively. When those melodic intervals are converted into their corresponding letters in the alphabet using a basic number-to-letter key (A = 1, B = 2, C = 3, etc.), they become E, F, and B. Those are the initials for the covert Theme, Ein feste Burg. It would not be an exaggeration to assert that this solution is dead on. The second spelling of “DEAD” concluding in bar 529 is conspicuous because contemporary sources in 1898 asserted that Martin Luther composed Ein feste Burg in the year 1529 for the Diet of Speyer.

Elgar completed the orchestration of the Enigma Variations on February 19, 1899, yet penned the wrong completion date on the Master Score as “FEb 18, 1898.” The shadow of death looms over this anomaly as February 18 marks the anniversary of Martin Luther’s passing. At the end of the original Master Score, Elgar inscribed a paraphrase from Torquato Tasso's masterpiece Jerusalem Delivered. That epic Christian poem was published in 1581, yet Elgar incorrectly dated the paraphrase as 1595. The reason for the apparent error is that Tasso died in 1595. To learn more about the secrets of the Enigma Variations, read my free eBook Elgar's Enigmas Exposed. Please help support and expand my original research by becoming a sponsor on Patreon.

Soli Yah Gloria