The theme, or the “Enigma,” is an _andante_, G minor, 4-4, of a
melancholy nature, with a halting and sighing melody. A few measures of
musical notation would show more clearly the nature of the following
variations than any verbal description, however graphic.
Elgar wrote to the late August Johannes Jaeger that he had composed
thirteen variations, but, yielding to superstition, he had called the
_finale_ the fourteenth.