Энигма-вариации, Op. 36 — это симфоническое произведение Эдварда Элгара, основанное на музыкальном криптограмме, которая повторяется и варьируется более 14 раз. На самом деле, намекающее название композиции является отсылкой к скрытой теме, которая проходит через всё произведение, не будучи сыгранной. По словам самого Элгара, Вариации являются контрапунктом к этой загадочной теме. Со временем музыковеды с удовольствием пытались отследить этот призрак мелодии: некоторые узнавали гимн Боже, храни королеву или Старый добрый друг; другие видели Симфонию «Прага» Моцарта; лексикограф Ханс Вестгеест обнаружил вторую часть Сонаты «Патетическая» Бетховена; в то время как недавно композитор Марк Джеретто предложил знаменитую мелодию звонка Биг-Бена…  Таким образом, Энигма-вариации продолжают завораживать своей природой как «открытое произведение» (У. Эко), как будто бросая вызов своей аудитории…

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

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