Nimrod

If it’s Nimrod it must be England. Originally just one of Elgar’s fifteen “Enigma” Variations, it has been elevated to an iconic status as the first thing (after the National Anthem) that comes to the British mind when thinking about music to go with a solemn occasion. Which is a pity because it is now impossible to hear it in its ”Enigma” context, where it takes its due place as a melodious slow variation between two moderately quick ones, without taking on board its funereal associations. Nimrod, incidentally, was the great-grandson of Noah, the founder of the Babylonian dynasty and, more to the point, a great hunter - hence its use here as a cryptic identification of the dedicatee of the variation, the composer’s editor at Novello’s, A. J. Jaeger, whose surname is the German for “hunter.”