THE SEVENTH DAY OF CHRISTMAS
New Year’s Eve, my nemesis. The most depressing day of the year.
Fortunately, I’ll be working tonight, so I’m hoping I’ll be able to ignore all the hollow attempts at merriment. But it hasn’t happened so far, that I can remember. Once, I even flew through the night to Europe, hoping to confound the natural passage of time. But it’s always midnight somewhere, and the flight attendants vexed me with a champagne toast.
At any rate, I hope whatever you are doing, you have a better attitude, and that you are all safe and genuinely happy with your New Year’s lot.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m pretty happy with my life. It’s just New Year’s I hate!
To coat the bitter pill, I’d like to talk for a minute about Sir Edward Elgar. For over a hundred years, musicologists have puzzled over the hidden theme Elgar claims to have left off of his “Enigma Variations” – which, come to think of it, is a great New Year’s Eve piece, since it celebrates friendship as an antidote to what the composer claimed was his sense of loneliness as an artist.
“Through and over the whole set, another and larger theme ‘goes,’ but is not played,” Elgar wrote.
Since then, theories as to the theme’s identity have ranged from “Rule, Britannia” to the “Dies Irae” to “Pop Goes the Weasel.” Here’s an interesting article from 1991 that posits the elusive theme may have been taken from Mozart’s “Prague” Symphony.
In this clip, someone actually uses the opening of the “Enigma” to harmonize “Auld Lang Syne.”
What do you think?
Ernest Tomlinson takes this theory about as far as it can go, suggesting that “Auld Lang Syne” underlies not only Elgar’s magnum opus, but also most of the world’s great masterpieces. He puts his money where his mouth is, with tongue planted firmly in cheek, by sending up no less than 152 familiar melodies in his “’Auld Lang Syne’ Variations.’”
Happy New Year, everyone.
PHOTO: Sir Edward takes a pipe for Auld Lang Syne
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