From radio toopia, you're listening to season 7 of Love and Radio.

I'm Nick Vanacolk.

Today's episode, Counter-Melody, featuring Bob Pageant.

The Enigma Variations is a symphonic work composed by Edward Elgar.

It's a set of variations based on a theme which he called Enigma.

Following the Enigma theme, of course, is a set of 14 variations, each dedicated to one of Elgar's friends.

For example, variation 10, Dorabella, is dedicated to his friend Dorabeni.

She had a stutter and Elgar poked fun at that.

Kind of a stuttering line.

He did it in a playful way. He didn't intend to demean her.

He took something that others may have looked down upon and turned into something beautiful.

This is Elgar describing the Enigma Variations.

The Enigma I will not explain, it's dark saying must be left unguessed.

And I warn you that the connection between the variations and the theme is often of the slightest texture.

Further, through and over the whole set, another and larger thing goes, but is not played.

And that sounds like a riddle, right?

Elgar himself said that the Enigma theme was in fact a counter-melody to a very famous theme.

Many diverse themes have been proposed.

Pop goes the weasel, play Albertania, old Langzane, Mozart's Progy Symphony.

But none of these melodies actually fit, and so the debate continues.

I was hopeful that someone had already figured this out.

Somebody had studied this in great detail and had written a book on the subject,

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