August Jaeger

August Jaeger (1860-1909) was an Anglo-German music publisher, who developed a close personal relationship with the English composer Edward Elgar.

German by birth, (born in Dusseldorf), he met Elgar by virtue of his employment at the London music publisher Novello. His advice and friendship became invaluable to Elgar, causing the composer to rethink many famous musical passages, including the finale to his "Variations on an Original Theme" ("Enigma Variations") and the climax of "The Dream of Gerontius". Jaeger has been immortalized in the famous ninth variation "Nimrod" from the first above-mentioned work, recalling a conversation on the slow movements of Beethoven (Nimrod was a Biblical hunter, a pun on the German word for hunter, jaeger).

Jaeger championed the work of the young black composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and told Elgar he was "a genius".

He married Isabel Dunkersley, a pupil of Henry Holmes at the Royal College of Music.

References

*cite book|title=The Hiawatha Man|author=Self, Geoffrey|publisher=Scolar Press|year=1995|ISBN=0-85967-983-7