'August Jaeger' (1860-1909), German by birth, (born in Dusseldorf), developed a close personal relationship with the English composer
Edward 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 ''Nimrod'' variation 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.
Reference
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The Hiawatha Man, Self, Geoffrey, , , Scolar Press, 1995,