User:JackofOz/sandbox

=Schubert's Piano Sonatas=


 * Posthumous opus

=Centenary of Federation=

The Centenary of Federation was the year-long series of celebrations and events held in 2001 to mark the first 100 years of the Commonwealth of Australia as a unified nation. Federation was inaugurated on 1 January 1901 as a federation of six states that were previously Crown colonies of the United Kingdom.

Honours and awards
The Centenary Medal was instituted and awarded to a great many individuals.

Gifts from foreign governments
The British Government gave Australia a Magna Carta Monument, which is located in Magna Carta Place, Canberra.

Currency
A special commemorative design of the Australian five-dollar note was issued, featuring images of Catherine Helen Spence and Sir Henry Parkes, both important influences in the campaign for federation. The standard design of the note resumed in 2002 and the special notes have been progressively removed from circulation. Australian one dollar coins were issued with the Centenary of Federation logo stamped on them.

Federation Square
Federation Square

Community projects

 * Federation Walk

Government
The Prime Minister John  Howard appointed Peter McGauran as Minister for the Centenary of Federation.

Parliament
Joint meetings of the Australian Parliament On 9 May 2001, there was a special commemorative joint sitting of the Parliament of Australia, in the Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne, the place where it first sat exactly 100 years earlier on 9 May 1901. The session was addressed by the Governor-General, Sir William Deane.

Vehicle registration plates
Vehicle registration plates of Australia At least New South Wales issued a special series of number plates embossed with the slogan Centenary of Federation.

Ross Fitzgerald Reconciliation Australia Batavia (opera) Victorian Honour Roll of Women AustralAsia Rail Corporation  C of F Fund Prayer Bells Federation Bells Martin Wilson New South Wales Premier's History Awards The Big Picture (painting) Australian citizenship affirmation Dick Smith (entrepreneur) Constitution of Australia Henry Parkes Australia's Federation Guard Robyn Archer

=Proposed solutions to Elgar's Enigma=

Edward Elgar composed his Enigma Variations, Op. 36, in 1898–99. It is a set of fourteen variations on a hidden "theme" that is, in Elgar's words, "not played". It is Elgar's best-known large-scale composition, for both the music itself and the enigma behind it.

The enigma
The enigma is the hidden theme, which has been the subject of much speculation. Various musicians have proposed theories for what melody it could be, although Elgar did not say that that his "theme" was a melody. The enigma could be something else, such as a symbol or a literary theme. Elgar accepted none of the solutions proposed in his lifetime, and, pleased with his little joke, took the secret with him to the grave. In a programme note for the first performance, Charles A. Barry quoted:

"The Enigma I will not explain - its '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 theme 'goes', but is not played.... So the principal Theme never appears, even as in some late dramas ... the chief character is never on the stage."

Elgar also wrote the following, in a set of notes issued with the Aeolian Company pianola rolls published in 1929:

"The alternation of the two quavers and two crotchets in the first bar and their reversal in the second bar will be noticed; references to this grouping are almost continuous (either melodically or in the accompanying figures - in Variation XIII, beginning at bar 11 [503], for example). The drop of a seventh in the Theme (bars 3 and 4) should be observed. At bar 7 (G major) appears the rising and falling passage in thirds which is much used later, e.g. Variation III, bars 10.16. [106, 112]"

Julian Rushton suggests that any solution must satisfy five criteria, three of which stem from the above quotations: a "dark saying" must be involved; the theme "is not played"; the theme should be "well known", as Elgar stated multiple times; Dora Penny (to whom Elgar also wrote the Dorabella Cipher) should have been, "of all people," the one to solve the Enigma; and finally, the details mentioned in the notes accompanying the pianola rolls may be part of the solution.

Norman Del Mar speculates that "there would be considerable loss if the solution were to be found, much of the work's attraction lying in the impenetrability of the riddle itself", and that interest in the work would not be as strong had the Enigma been solved during Elgar's lifetime.

Other writers, such as F. G. Edwards in 1900 and Robert Buckley in 1905, have held that the theme is a "countermelody to some other unheard tune": it would fit when played simultaneously, but does not necessarily contain any of its characteristics other than the most general harmonic or structural outline. Edwards wrote, "In connection with these much discussed Variations, Mr Elgar tells us that the heading Enigma is justified by the fact that it is possible to add another phrase, which is quite familiar, above the original theme that he has written. What that theme is no one knows except the composer. Thereby hangs the Enigma." Buckley, in his Elgar biography of 1905, wrote, "The theme is a counterpoint on some well-known melody which is never heard".

Proposed solutions
Various musicians have tried to tease out the hidden theme in the belief that it is a derivation of some well-known tune. Others have concluded that the theme is not a musical phrase but a literary or philosophical theme. Following are some details of the most widely-discussed theories:

Auld Lang Syne
Of the musical themes suggested as the Enigma, one of the most frequently proposed is the Scottish song "Auld Lang Syne", which has been favoured by Elgar's friend Richard Powell (husband of Dorabella), the musicologist Roger Fiske, and the writer Eric Sams.

Elgar himself, however, said, "'Auld Lang Syne' won't do."

God Save the Queen
Arthur Troyte Griffith asked Elgar if "God Save the Queen" was the hidden theme. He replied, "Of course not!"

Rule, Britannia!
Some people have pointed out that the theme of the Variations is similar to the "never, never, never" section of the song "Rule, Britannia!". This theory was accepted by the president of the Elgar Society, Yehudi Menuhin. Before conducting the variations at Carnegie Hall, New York, in 1984, Menuhin addressed the audience explaining that the solution to Elgar's enigma was "none other" than "Rule, Britannia". According to the "Rule, Britannia!" theory (presented by the Anglo-Dutch musicologist and writer Theodore van Houten, in Music Review, May 1976) this hidden character is "Britannia ruling the waves." Moreover, van Houten suggested that Variation XI represents another symbol for England: John Bull, with bulldog and all. Van Houten's "Rule Britannia!" theory links the Enigma Variations with nationalism in European music around 1900. Elgar, then a solid conservative, wrote his patriotic cantata Caractacus, Op. 35, just before the Enigma Variations, Op. 36. The premiere concert was concluded by Alexander Mackenzie's Overture Britannia, based on "Rule, Britannia!".

Mozart's Prague Symphony
The pianist Joseph Cooper proposed the theory that the theme may be based on part of Mozart's Prague Symphony, which was on the programme at the Enigma Variations premiere in 1899. This solution was favoured by Sir Charles Mackerras, who conducted a concert entitled "Elgar – The Enigma Solved?" in February 1992.

La Folia
Also proposed has been the traditional Renaissance theme La Folia, whose chords roughly fit the theme, although Elgar's use of accented seventh notes would have been a decidedly nineteenth-century adaptation.

"Pop Goes the Weasel"
Dennis J. Whitten has suggested "Pop Goes the Weasel" as the theme.

Bach's The Art of Fugue
In 1985, Marshall Portnoy in the Musical Quarterly (Oxford) suggested that the answer to the enigma was Johann Sebastian Bach's The Art of Fugue. The Art of Fugue contains the B-A-C-H motif (in English notation, B-flat A C B-natural) which appears in the 14th fugue, which, in Portnoy's view, also seems to have been hinted at in the Enigma Variations.

"Now the day is over"
A recent theory, proposed by Clive McClelland of the University of Leeds, suggests that the hidden theme is the hymn tune "Now the day is over". Unlike most theories, this deals with all 24 notes of the main theme; the lyrics too, McClelland thinks, fit in with Elgar's "dark saying".

Beethoven's Pathétique Sonata, slow movement
The Dutch lexicographer Hans Westgeest published this theory in 2007, although it is not new (it was proposed at least as early as 1953; see "Other suggestions" below). He found a connection between the enigma and the Jaeger-Beethoven-story behind the Nimrod-variation which Elgar told Dora Penny later (in relation to Variation IX).

The real theme of the Enigma Variations which is present everywhere throughout the work in different shapes, is rather short: it consists of only nine notes (the first nine notes of Nimrod with added crotchet rests) on the rhythm of Edward Elgar's own name ("short-short-long-long", and the reverse of it, "long-long-short-short" and an endnote). He composed his "Elgar theme" as a countermelody to the beginning of the mysterious "principal Theme" which is "not played" in the Enigma Variations. This turns out to be the theme of the second movement of Ludwig van Beethoven's Pathétique Sonata. The "Elgar theme" follows that Beethoven melody: it comprises the very notes of it. As Westgeest states, the symbolism of this is evident: by composing the work Elgar follows the example of Beethoven, as Jaeger told him to do. By doing so, the artist triumphs over depression and discouragement in the Finale, "E.D.U." So, like some works of Elgar's contemporaries Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler, the Enigma Variations are about the artist himself: (almost) all the themes of the work are in fact derived from the "Elgar theme". In this theory even Elgar's later remark to Dora Penny "I thought that you of all people would guess it" makes good sense.

Friendship
The musical scholar Sir Jack Westrup insisted that, according to Elgar's words, it was clear that the theme was a melody: "Everyone who knew Elgar at the time is quite emphatic that he meant a tune. Hence the suggestion that the larger theme is friendship – reinforced by a quotation from the Religio Medici which includes the word 'Enigmas' – can hardly have any foundation". Others have disagreed.

"Through a glass, darkly"
Professor Ian Parrott, former vice-president of the Elgar Society, in his book on Elgar (Master Musicians, 1971) wrote that the "dark saying", and possibly the whole of the Enigma, had a biblical source, 1 Corinthians 13:12, which reads according to the Authorised Version of the Bible: "For now we see through a glass, darkly (enigmate in the Latin of the Vulgate); but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known". This verse is from St. Paul's essay on love. Elgar was a practising Roman Catholic and on 12 February 1899, eight days before the completion of the Variations, he attended Quinquagesima Mass at St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church in Malvern. This particular verse was read.

The Dark Lady of Shakespeare's Sonnets
Another literary theme was suggested by Edmund M. Green in The Elgar Society Journal (November 2004, Vol. 13, No. 6) in which he suggested that the "larger" theme is Shakespeare's Sonnet 66 and that the word "Enigma" stands for the real name of the The Dark Lady of the Sonnets.

Pi and "Sing a Song of Sixpence"
Another theme that has been suggested is the mathematical constant $\pi$ pi, which is "well known". The first four notes of the Variations are the scale degrees 3-1-4-2, which correspond to an approximation of pi. (However, 3-1-4-2 is a common musical pattern that appears in countless pieces of music.) The commonly used fractional approximation is also observed in the two "drops of a seventh" that follow exactly after the first eleven notes– 11 x 2/7, or 22/7. In this proposal, the "dark saying" is a pun on the nursery rhyme "Sing a Song of Sixpence", found in "Four and twenty blackbirds (dark) baked in a pie (Pi)", used to refer to the first twenty-four black notes. Elgar wrote his Enigma Variations in the year following the Indiana Pi Bill of 1897, and noted in 1910 that the work was "commenced in a spirit of humour".

Other suggestions
In 1953 the American magazine The Saturday Review organised a competition to find plausible candidates for the Enigma theme. Entries included:
 * "Una bella serenata" from Mozart's Così fan tutte
 * the "Agnus Dei" from J.S. Bach's Mass in B minor
 * the slow movement of Beethoven's Pathétique Sonata
 * "When I am laid in earth" from Purcell's Dido and Aeneas and
 * "None shall part us" from Sir Arthur Sullivan's Iolanthe.