SKU: A0.1124310

Sir Edward Elgar’s compositional output was prolific, with many well-known pieces, including the Pomp & Circumstance marches, Dream of Gerontius, and of course, the Engima Variations. Elgar’s legacy has been widely debated, but there is no doubt of his influence on ‘English’ music and composers such as Ralph Vaughan Williams, but also further afield, on composers as diverse as Richard Strauss, Jean Sibelius, and Igor Stravinsky.

Along with a central theme woven and varied throughout the work, each movement of Engima Variations is also a musical illustration, based on a family member or close friend of Elgar, and indeed Elgar himself. He dedicated the work “to my friends pictured within�.

“Nimrod� is the name given to the ninth movement, based on Elgar’s editor and publisher, Augustus J, Jaeger. Musically, there is an obvious hint at the 2nd movement of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata Pathetique, but beyond this there are beautiful legato lines spread across the whole ensemble and a wide variety of timbral, dynamic, and tempo colourations.

“Nimrod� has become a popular piece as a standalone item – often featuring in funerals, memorial services, and other solemn events such as Remembrance Sunday. Hans Zimmer also adapts the piece for use in the score for the 2017 film Dunkirk, and has become a standard tune to represent stoic ‘Britishness’.