Ravinia 2025 Issue 4

young woman, studied viola with Elgar. Winifred Norbury (“W.N.”) helped proof the composer’s scores and worked as secretary for the Worces- tershire Philharmonic Society. George Robert- son Sinclair (“G.R.S.”) served as organist of the Hereford Cathedral; his spunky bulldog, Dan, is caricatured in several Elgar compositions. A few individuals come from the literary world. Richard Baxter Townshend (“R.B.T.”) wrote about his experiences among the American Indians in a series of Tenderfoot books. Town- shend married a sister of another adventurer, WilliamMeath Baker (“W.M.B.”), squire of Has- field, Gloucestershire. Elgar visited the home of Richard Penrose Arnold (“R.P.A.”), the son of poet Matthew Arnold, with Arthur Troyte Grif- fith (“Troyte”) two days after improvising the “Enigma” theme. Griffith worked for an archi- tectural office at Priory Gateway; one partner in the firm was Nevinson’s brother. “Dorabella” was Dora Penny, step-niece of William Meath Baker, who received the nickname Dorabella from a character in Mozart’s Così fan tutte . The final two variations—“* * *” and “E.D.U.”— proved less simple to unravel. It now seems clear that Elgar intended the first as a charac- terization of Lady Mary Lygon of Madresfield Court. Not only did he refer to this variation as “L” and “L.M.L.” in private correspondence, but a quotation from Felix Mendelssohn’s Calm and Prosperous Sea Voyage overture, later al- tered by Elgar to obscure its origins, likely al- ludes to her recent departure for Australia. The letters “E.D.U.” stumped even his closest friends until Elgar hinted that not all are ini- tials. Their true meaning instantly became ev- ident: the composer himself was “Edu,” a pet name his wife occasionally used. One last enigma involving the “theme not played” may never be satisfactorily resolved. Scholars have suggested countless melodies, some banal and others serious, that seem to “go” with the principal theme, among them “Auld Lang Syne,” God Save the King,” “Home, Sweet Home,” “Loch Lomond,” “Rule, Britan- nia,” and certain portions of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and Brahms’s Four Serious Songs . The most plausible theory at present involves the sequence chant from the Mass of the Dead, the Dies irae . Elgar himself provided the piv- otal clue in his program note by referring to Maeterlinck’s absent protagonist. In both plays, the figure who dominated the action without appearing on stage was Death himself. –Program notes © 2025 Todd E. Sullivan weeks later. A piano version followed immedi- ately, and, on February 21, he dispatched a copy of the score to conductor Hans Richter, who un- veiled this magnificent orchestral score on June 19 at St. James’s Hall in London. Many attending the world premiere grasped the significance of the event, which impacted no one more pow- erfully than Alice: “What can I say to him, the dear one—I feel that he is some great historic person—I cannot claim a little bit of him now he belongs to the big world.” Jaeger viewed this musical triumph within a broader, national context, expressing hope that the extraordinary work “would open to [Elgar] the hearts of all who have faith in the future of our English art.” News of a cryptic notation on the composer’s manuscript—the word “Enigma” written in pen- cil above the main theme that was suppressed in the published scores—leaked out before the pre- miere. Elgar contributed an explanatory para- graph to the program notes by Charles Barry but refused to reveal the secret. Furthermore, his brief essay raised the specter of more than one enigma. “It is true that I have sketched for their amusement and mine, the idiosyncrasies of 14 of my friends, not necessarily musicians; but this is a personal matter and need not have been men- tioned publicly. The ‘Enigma’ I will not explain— its ‘dark saying’ must be left unguessed, and I warn you that the apparent connection 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 ap- pears, even as in some late dramas—e.g., Maeterlinck’s L’intruse and Les sept Princesses — the chief character is never on the stage.” Part of the mystery—the identity of his friends— has been solved over time. “C.A.E.” is none other than the composer’s wife, Caroline Alice Elgar. His good friend Jaeger appears as “Nim- rod.” Several figures have musical connections to the composer. Hew David Steuart-Powell (“H.D.S-P.”) was a pianist who took part in trio evenings with cellist Basil Nevinson (“B.G.N.”). Isabel Fitton (“Ysobel”), a tall and attractive Edward Elgar MARIN ALSOP Following six performances at Ravinia Festival with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra between 2002 and 2006, Marin Alsop has been an an- nual guest at the festival since 2018 and Chief Conductor since 2021, leading three weeks of concerts with the CSO each summer. She began her professional education at Yale University at 16 and within six years earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in violin at The Juilliard School. In 1989, Alsop became the first woman to re- ceive Tanglewood’s Koussevitzky Conducting Prize. Today the director of graduate conduct- ing at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University, she is the only conductor to have earned a MacArthur Fellowship. She founded the Taki Alsop Conducting Fellowship in 2002 to nurture the careers of female conductors, providing mentorship and a network of now 36 women active in the field. A documentary about Alsop’s life, The Conductor , premiered at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival and won the Focus on the Arts Award at the Naples International Film Festival. In addition to her role at Ravin- ia, Alsop is Principal Guest Conductor of the Philharmonia (London) and Philadelphia Or- chestras, Chief Conductor of the Polish National and Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestras, and Music Director of the National Orchestral In- stitute + Festival at the University of Maryland. In 2021 she became Music Director Laureate of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, concluding a 14-year tenure that included the founding of the OrchKids youth music initiative, and she is Conductor of Honor of the São Paulo Sym- phony Orchestra following her seven years as its principal conductor and music director. Deeply committed to newmusic, she was music director of the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music for 25 years, during which she led 174 premieres. In addition to regular engagements with the Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras, Alsop has long-standing relationships with the Lon- don Symphony and Philharmonic Orchestras and frequently guests with the Gewandhaus, Concertgebouw, and La Scala Orchestras. Her extensive award-winning discography includes Brahms, Dvořák, and Prokofiev cycles on Naxos and further recordings on Decca, Harmonia Mundi, and Sony Classical. RAVINIAMAGAZINE • JULY 21 – AUG. 3, 2025 66 PATRICKGIPSON/RAVINIA