For this guest post, I am delighted to welcome my friend and colleague, Neil Bettridge. Neil was Project Archivist at the Derbyshire Record Office. I have welcomed Neil before on the blog. He has written a two-part series on the life of Eric Liddell, of Chariots of Fire fame. You can read those here and here. He also … Continue reading Elgar’s Nimrod and Remembrance Services: a Guest Post by Neil Bettridge →
For this guest post, I am delighted to welcome my friend and colleague, Neil Bettridge. Neil was Project Archivist at the Derbyshire Record Office. I have welcomed Neil before on the blog. He has written a two-part series on the life of Eric Liddell, of Chariots of Fire fame. You can read those here and here. He also contributed a post on Charles Dickens’ connections to John Franklin, based on his work at the Record Office. You can read that here.
On this Remembrance Sunday (9th November) there will be the customary National Service of Remembrance held at the Cenotaph in Whitehall, London. Veterans of the armed forces and other eligible participants will march past the stone memorial designed by the architect Edwyn Lutyens, which was first revealed at the 1920 service. At some stage during the marching parade the Massed Bands of the Guards Division will start to play the opening bars of “Nimrod”, and nobody (with a heart) will fail to be moved by its heartfelt and melodious strains. The song seems to be in harmony with the character and atmosphere of the occasion.
“Nimrod” is also frequently performed at other events of national commemoration and mourning. The music was played on the organ at Westminster Abbey before the funeral service of Princess Diana in 1997. On the day of announcement of the death of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022, the BBC Prom concert due to be played at the Royal Albert Hall was dramatically cut short but not before a moving rendition of it had been played as a tribute to the late Queen. Possibly the most moving of such occasions was the funeral service of the Duke of Edinburgh in 2021 in the courtyard of Windsor Castle, when the Band of the Grenadier Guards played it under blue skies to the mass ranks of servicemen with heads bowed.
Many people now associate ‘Nimrod’ with significant moments of national mourning. The music was not created as a stand-alone, memorial piece of music, but was part of a larger work composed by Edward Elgar in 1899 entitled ‘Variations on an Original Theme (Enigma) for Orchestra’. The somewhat dry title belies the wonderful imagination and magnificence of the ‘Enigma Variations’, which is probably the most well-known piece of English classical music. The concept of the piece was that Elgar was trying to sketch out in music the characteristics and personal traits of people whom he knew well and loved in and around Worcester. The original theme had resulted from Elgar improvising on the piano at home after a tiring day teaching violin. On hearing it, his wife, Alice, had interrupted his playing to say “that’s a good tune”. Elgar was initially dismissive, but did go on to say “something could be made out of it”.
Out of this original theme emerged 14 variations, each given initials of nick-names to indicate who they were meant to represent. Elgar himself provided the back stories behind each individual variation 30 years after their composition. At the heart of it all, of course, is ‘Nimrod’, the 9th variation. The person which this variation portrays is August Johannes Jaeger, a German music editor who became Elgar’s best friend.
The name ‘Nimrod’ itself is an example of Elgar’s love of puns and puzzles. In German, the word ‘jaeger’ means ‘hunter’, and in the Bible, Genesis 10.9, Nimrod was described as “a mighty hunter before the Lord”. Jaeger was born in Düsseldorf in 1860, the son of a cattle dealer. Denied the opportunity to pursue a musical career by his father, he took the brave decision to move to England in 1878, when only aged 18. In 1890 he joined the firm of Novellos, the leading English music publishers of the time. By 1897 Jaeger had become its publishing editor and came into regular contact with Elgar, many of whose works had been published by the firm. Jaeger’s mission was to find and encourage new composers in what some people thought was “the land without music”. He helped a raft of young British composers, but it was his special relationship with Elgar which produced his greatest musical legacy for his adopted country.
In spite of the image of the self-assured Edwardian country gentleman which he wanted to promote, Edward Elgar was actually a man plagued by self-doubt, insecurity and depression. Born in 1857 in Broadheath, Worcestershire, he was the son of a lower middle class piano tuner and music shopkeeper. The young Elgar turned out to be a highly talented musician, who developed his skills practising on musical instruments and studying the scores to be found in the family shop. Essentially self-taught in musical composition, he started to produce primarily small-scale works which earned him a certain reputation in the Worcestershire and Birmingham area.
In the 1890s Elgar turned his attention to larger-scale works to help cater for the many choral societies in Britain, which provided the backbone of British musical life in the late Victorian period. Although he was gaining invaluable experience in writing for orchestras and his name was becoming more widely known, Elgar felt that this counted for very little with the class conscious London musical establishment and critics who, he thought, regarded him as little more than an uneducated, untrained provincial nonentity. This made him sensitive to any critical slights aimed at him.
Fortunately, his friend Jaeger helped to bolster the prickly Englishman’s sense of self-worth. Elgar and Jaegar discussed many issues including practical publishing matters, financial struggles, or Elgar’s place in the musical world. Jaeger responded to Elgar’s complaints with a mixture of practical advice, moral support and encouragement. They shared many of the same opinions on music, particularly when it came to the state of music in England.
Elgar once wrote to Jaeger saying that he was ‘sick of music’ and ‘going to give it up’ and try something else instead before it was too late. This led to the German’s suggestion that he come up to visit him in Worcestershire and talk it all through. Elgar would later write that the ‘Nimrod’ variation was “the record of a long summer evening talk, when my friend discoursed eloquently on the slow movements of Beethoven, and said that no one could approach Beethoven at his best, a view with which I concurred. It will be noticed that the opening bars are made to suggest the slow movement of the eighth [piano] sonata (Pathétique)”.
Beethoven had famously lost his hearing when a young man and had often thought of giving it all up as well, but courageously continued to write still more beautiful music, and, as Jaeger put it to his friend, “that is what you must do”. Jaeger had no doubts about Elgar’s abilities and recognised that, in spite of an “attack of the blues”, he was not going to be give up on his ambitions so easily. He wrote “Your time of universal recognition will come”. Elgar took great heart from such support. His way of showing his gratitude for it was to compose into the variation what he called Jaeger’s “good, lovable, honest soul”.
The first performance of the Enigma Variations on 19th June 1899 at St James’s Hall in London, was a great success. Jaeger’s review in Novello’s house magazine, ‘The Musical Times’, said: “Here is an English musician who has something to say and knows how to say it in his own individual and beautiful way”. Jaeger’s assessment was shared by others, including critics, helping to bolster Elgar’s reputation. Jaeger would be proved right in his prediction, as Elgar at last gained acknowledgement as a composer of great talent, maybe even of genius.
He went on to produce a string of masterpieces over the next twenty years, including two great symphonies, the oratorio Dream of Gerontius, the achingly sad Cello Concerto, and that hardy perennial, Land of Hope and Glory. He also received official recognition with a knighthood in 1904, the Order of Merit in 1911, the title of Master of the King’s Musick in 1924 and a baronetcy in 1931.
There is an important postscript which needs to be added on the composition of the ‘Enigma Variations’. The version at the first performance is not the one we hear now. The finale was much shorter and ended abruptly. Jaeger told Elgar that the ending should be amended and lengthened, to which Elgar took some umbrage. In spite of this negative reaction, Jaeger continued to work on his friend, and a different, longer finale was eventually composed. It shows how seriously Elgar regarded the opinion of his friend, undertaking revisions he had not wanted to make. When Jaeger suggested one last revision, Elgar wrote ‘I’ve done it to please you (grrhh!)’.
The first time that ‘Nimrod’ can be heard as a commemoration of the dead would be provided in 1912 by Elgar himself in his composition called ‘The Music Makers’. Setting the words of the poem of that name by Arthur O’Shaughnessy, which is about the role of the artist and the creation of art, he quoted short extracts from his ‘greatest hits’, which included a lengthy quotation from ‘Nimrod’. This quotation now had a special resonance for Elgar, as he reworked it as an expression of his own grief at the death of his great friend. Jaeger had died in 1909 aged 49, after a lengthy struggle with tuberculosis. In the programme notes produced for the first performance Elgar wrote the following: “Amongst all the inept writing and wrangling about music, his voice was clear, ennobling, sober and sane, and for his help and inspiration I make this acknowledgement”.
The use of ‘Nimrod’ in the Remembrance Day services seems an appropriate and respectful response to the memory of those members of the armed forces who lost their lives in the First World War and beyond. One of Elgar’s biographers, Percy M. Young, described ‘Nimrod’ as “one of the simplest and most moving utterances in the whole of music”. The distinguished conductor and Elgar interpreter, the late Andrew Davis, summed up the variation with these words: “it is full of Elgar’s compassion for his fellow beings, our courage and nobility in times of conflict certainly, but also the deepest level of hope in humanity that the storm will pass and the sun will shine once more”.
The first appearance of Nimrod in the Remembrance Day memorial service and parade took place in 1920. It may seem odd now, but Elgar himself was not happy with how things turned out. The reason for this was that in January 1920 he had a written a piece called ‘With Proud Thanksgiving’, a revised and simplified version of a movement of “The Spirit of England” called “For the Fallen” (written in 1917). Elgar expected this to be used for the dedication of the Cenotaph in Whitehall. This was music to the poem by Laurence Binyon, using phrases of which are entirely familiar to us: “They shall not grow old, as we that are left shall grow old”, “Age shall not weary them” and “We will remember them”. It was, however, rejected for use in the service itself, and Elgar was upset that he was “having no part in the Cenotaph Service”. It was a Captain F. W. Wood who chose ‘Nimrod’ to be used for the parade. It may not have been used every year from then on but it has been an integral part of the service since 1946. In my opinion, the Captain made absolutely the right call!
Bibliography and Sources
Over the years I have read or looked at many different types of source materials on ‘Nimrod’, whether they be books, CD or album notes, newspaper or magazine articles, videos or clips on YouTube, but these are the main sources around which this post has been written.
Elgar the Music Maker by Diana McVeagh, Boydell Press, 2007
Portrait of Elgar by Michael Kennedy, Clarendon Press, 3rd edition, 1987
Elgar: ‘Enigma’ Variations by Julian Rushton, Cambridge University Press, 1999
Elgar O.M. by Percy M. Young, Purnell Book Services, 1973
Two articles by Adrian Mourby written for “The Guardian: “A friend for life”, 14 July 1995, and “On a Very English Note”, 25 June 1999
Elgar’s Enigma Variations, DVD containing a performance by the BBC Symphony Orchestra at Worcester Cathedral, conducted by the late Andrew Davis, and a documentary entitled “A Hidden Portrait”, Opus Arte, 2004
