Enigma

“I want to be an enigma,” Charley* says before playing a single note. Her expression is serious. She usually comes in with a joke, I laugh because they’re usually very funny, and then we start her lesson. But this?

“Did you just learn a new vocabulary word in English class?” I realize my mistake instantly. Her face crumples and she looks away.

She takes a moment. “NO. I read it in a book and I looked up the definition. And then I heard a piece I never heard of called Enigma Variations on KVOD. Isn’t it weird how there are coincidences like this?” She has quickly recovered from my faux pas. She listens to the classical music station? I am internally elated.

I ask her why she wants to be an enigma.

“Because it is much more interesting than being a regular boring old high school student. Which I will be next year.” Charley seems to be appalled at herself for still being in 8^th grade. “Playing the oboe helps in that department. I am already unusual. I would like to be a full- out enigma.”

I tell her that I fully support that goal. When I was her age, I’m not sure that I knew what an enigma was. But apparently I was odd enough that at our last high school reunion, a classmate took one look at me and said, “Yup. Still weird and quirky, just older.” I think that this is close enough to actually being an enigma.

I asked Charley if she’d listened to the entire Enigma Variations.

“Of course I did.” Eye roll. “I like that you had to guess what the variations were about. Or who.” So she’d also read about Elgar. Of course she did. “My favorite is Nimrod. I would like to play it in an orchestra someday.” I think she’s heading for a career as a psychologist or maybe a nuclear physicist, not an orchestral player. I could be wrong.

“There’s a good chance of that,” I tell her. I do hope so for her.

“Sometimes my dad calls people who are jerks nimrods. Now I have cognitive dissonance about it.”

Oh my god, what? How does she know what cognitive dissonance is?

“I look stuff up.” She knew the question in my mind.

“I’m impressed.” Really, I was very impressed.

“Music is really really really emotional.” She looks at me with eyes that are amazed and trying to figure out how this can be. I quietly agree with her, my heart full.

*Of course, not her real name.

Nimrod, the 9^th Variation of Elgar’s Enigma Variations, is often played at funerals and memorials, particularly for British royalty (Princess Diana, Queen Elizabeth II). My most impactful personal experience of playing it was at a not-cancelled concert just days post 9-11. No applause, the silence rang for a long time as we all absorbed the musical deep feeling and the unbelievableness of what had happened three days before. I’ve lost track of “Charley,” but if you’re “Charley” and you happen to be reading this, know that you inspired me and I’m grateful.

Learn more about Enigma Variations, Elgar, and hear a clip of Variation 9, Nimrod: https://www.classical-music.com/features/works/elgar-nimrod