Sir Edward and the six-foot tamale
Jun. 2nd, 2007 04:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calimacToday is the 150th birthday anniversary of Sir Edward Elgar, the great English composer, whose works include the Enigma Variations, a work I've argued would have made a better Lord of the Rings score than anything by Howard Shore, plus some charming miniatures, powerful oratorios, and three decreasingly pompous symphonies. The British government is commemorating this anniversary by taking Elgar's mug off of the £20 bank note where it has been residing for some years, deluding tourists into thinking that they're in a country that cares about its cultural heritage.
Norman Lebrecht poured cold water on the anniversary by opining that Elgar isn't such a great composer at all. But that is Lebrecht's wont: he seems to loathe good news or celebration of any kind.
And I celebrated Elgar's birthday by going to see the six-foot tamale.
Today was the east side Latino community's big annual family-friendly (no alcohol allowed) day out in the local park, you see, the tamale festival, and this year the event has been built up for by press accounts of the small legion of chefs employed over the last few days to prepare and cook a traditional ceremonial Mexican six-foot-long pork tamale.
It made its entrance to the festival carried on a litter by eight men to the beating of Aztec drums, and then rested on a table, slowly cooling, as various local dignitaries made mutually congratulatory speeches. Finally the wrappings were peeled off, a small army of serving spoons were wielded, and anyone who cared to line up for it got a plateful of six-foot tamale. My bite came from near the west end. It tasted pretty good.
Perhaps next year they will give us the big enchilada.
Norman Lebrecht poured cold water on the anniversary by opining that Elgar isn't such a great composer at all. But that is Lebrecht's wont: he seems to loathe good news or celebration of any kind.
And I celebrated Elgar's birthday by going to see the six-foot tamale.
Today was the east side Latino community's big annual family-friendly (no alcohol allowed) day out in the local park, you see, the tamale festival, and this year the event has been built up for by press accounts of the small legion of chefs employed over the last few days to prepare and cook a traditional ceremonial Mexican six-foot-long pork tamale.
It made its entrance to the festival carried on a litter by eight men to the beating of Aztec drums, and then rested on a table, slowly cooling, as various local dignitaries made mutually congratulatory speeches. Finally the wrappings were peeled off, a small army of serving spoons were wielded, and anyone who cared to line up for it got a plateful of six-foot tamale. My bite came from near the west end. It tasted pretty good.
Perhaps next year they will give us the big enchilada.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-06-03 11:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-03 11:40 pm (UTC)I've read that Elgar had originally intended to save the famous "Pomp & Circumstance" tune for a symphony, but it's not very developable and was much better utilized in its eventual role as a march trio.
I think there's a little confusion over the Enigma Variations title, "Variations on an Original Theme," though. The theme that the strings actually play at the beginning, that's the "original theme," i.e. a theme composed by Elgar. He said that he wrote it to go in perfect counterpoint with some other, already well-known theme, but wouldn't say what that theme was, and his refusal to say is the enigma that gives the work its nickname. And as one of your commenters noted, "Rule Britannia" is a candidate for the other, unheard theme.
The other enigma of the Enigma Variations was: who do the initials and code-names on the individual variations stand for? But that question has, since Elgar's death, been pretty securely answered.