Mystery of Elgar’s ‘l3th’ explained

Press, 23 April 1984, Page 6

Mystery of Elgar’s ‘l3th’ explained

NZPA-Reuter London A passionate love affair was the inspiration for the mysterious and unnamed 13th of Sir Edward Elgar’s 14 “Enigma Variations,” his godson has revealed.

The other variations in the British composer’s famous orchestral work are named by initials or acronyms belonging to known friends of Elgar, his wife, Alice, and himself. “The Sunday Times” said yesterday that Elgar’s godson, Wulstan Atkins, now 80, had ended a 50-year vow of silence to reveal the shadowy figure denoted by three asterisks in the title of the romantic “13th.”

The variation was a passionate remembrance of Helen Weaver, whom Elgar met when he was 25 and she 22 and to whom he later became engaged. Her family ran a fashionable boot shop in the western England town of Worcester. She had wanted to be a violinist and had studied at the conservatory at Leipzig, the paper said. The relationship had foundered after 18 months because of religious differences — Elgar was a devout Catholic and Miss Weaver a Unitarian. She broke off the engagement in 1884 and settled and died in New Zealand, “The Sunday Times” reported.