Elgar - Nimrod (from "Enigma Variations")

Daniel Barenboim with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, opening the 1997 season at Carnegie Hall in this gorgeously performed dedication to the recently deceased Sir Georg Solti. Solti was the previous music director of the CSO for many years.

Variations on an Original Theme for orchestra, Op. 36 ("Enigma"), commonly referred to as the "Enigma" Variations, is a set of a theme and its fourteen variations written for orchestra by Edward Elgar in 1898–99. It is Elgar's best-known large-scale composition, for both the music itself and the enigmas behind it. Elgar dedicated the piece to "my friends pictured within", each variation being an affectionate portrayal of one of his circle of close acquaintances.

Nimrod

is Augustus J. Jaeger, Elgar's best friend. It is said that this variation, as well as an attempt to capture what Elgar saw as Jaeger's noble character, depicts a night-time walk the two of them had, during which they discussed the slow movements of Ludwig van Beethoven. The first eight bars resemble, and have been said to represent, the beginning of the second movement of Beethoven's Eighth Piano Sonata (Pathetique). The name of the variation punningly refers to an Old Testament patriarch described as a mighty hunter, the name Jaeger being German for hunter.

source: Wikipedia