make any great impression on the audience; but we should expect to find, if ever Mr. Elgar were so fortunate as to obtain a really good subject and a good book, and especially a subject and book thoroughly adapted to his remarkable dramatic powers, that he would produce something of lasting value. [Sidenote: =The "Enigma Variations."= _February 9, 1900._] The style of composition called "Variations" is a striking example of a primitive form that has proved imperishable. Sir Hubert Parry has pointed out that the fundamental idea of variations in instrumental music is co-ordinate with the _canto fermo_ and counterpoint of the early choral composers. Each system resulted from an attempt at giving form and unity to a composition by repeating a theme over and over again, each time in some new aspect, or with fresh ornamentation; though the effect obtained by winding ingenious counterpoint for other voices about an unchanging _canto fermo_ is, of course, very different from the tricking out of the melody itself. In choral music the _canto fermo_ system almost died out when maturer principles of structure were discovered; but variation-form has never fallen into disuse at any period since its invention. It has been used by all the great masters, and by many of them as a vehicle for great and splendid ideas. General progress from the mechanical to the imaginative marks the successive stages through which the form has passed. One great reason for its vitality is that it admits of treatment in every possible style. Variations may be melodic, or contrapuntal, or harmonic. A superficial composer can make them by simply worrying his theme, a profound composer by developing the musical ideas that are in it. Bach's were mainly contrapuntal, Mozart's mainly melodic--one may even say melismatic--and Beethoven made variations of every kind, in his later works obtaining results of undreamed-of grandeur from the form. But the later Beethoven has never really been followed by any mortal in the austere and wonderful path that he struck out for himself, though Brahms and others have obtained a few hints from him. The originator of modern romantic variations was Schumann, whose "Etudes Symphoniques" revealed a fresh source of life in the form, that has proved less austerely inaccessible than Beethoven's; Brahms, Tchaïkovsky, and many others having obviously derived inspiration from it. Mr. Elgar stands in a peculiar relation to the modern masters of variation-form. He seems to be much preoccupied with the curious idea of musical portraiture, which, again, owes its existence to Schumann. The miniature of Chopin occurring in Schumann's "Carnaval" was the first, and perhaps remains to this day the best, example in its kind, and the sketch of Mendelssohn forming No. 24 of the same composer's "Album for the Young" is also a recognisable piece of musical portraiture. Mr. Elgar has carried out the idea in an extended scale in these variations.