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Für Elise

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Für Elise
Piano music by Ludwig van Beethoven
First edition, 1867
EnglishFor Elise
Full titleBagatelle No. 25 A minor: Für Elise
KeyA minor
Catalogue
GenreBagatelle, Classical Music
LanguageGerman
Composed27 April 1810 (1810-04-27)
Published1867 (1867)
Bagatelle in A minor

Bagatelle No. 25[a] in A minor (WoO 59, Bia 515) for solo piano, commonly known as "Für Elise" (German: [fyːɐ̯ ʔeˈliːzə], transl. For Elise), is one of Ludwig van Beethoven's most popular compositions.[1][2][3] It was not published during his lifetime but discovered (by Ludwig Nohl) 40 years after his death, and may be termed either a Bagatelle or an Albumblatt. The identity of "Elise" is unknown; researchers have suggested Therese Malfatti, Elisabeth Röckel, and Elise Barensfeld.

History

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The score was published in 1867, 40 years after Beethoven's death. The discoverer of the piece, Ludwig Nohl, affirmed that the original autograph manuscript, now lost, had the title: "Für Elise am 27 April [1810] zur Erinnerung von L. v. Bthvn" ("For Elise on April 27 in memory by L. v. Bthvn").[4] The music was published as part of Nohl's Neue Briefe Beethovens (New Letters by Beethoven) on pages 28 to 33, printed in Stuttgart by Johann Friedrich Cotta.[5]

The version of "Für Elise" heard today is an earlier version transcribed by Nohl. A revised version from 1822, with drastic changes to the accompaniment, was transcribed from a manuscript by the Beethoven scholar Barry Cooper. The most notable difference is that in the first theme, the left-hand arpeggios are delayed by a 16th note. There are a few extra bars in the transitional section into the B section; and finally, the rising A minor arpeggio figure comes later in the piece. The tempo marking Poco moto is believed to have been on the manuscript Nohl transcribed (now lost). The later version includes the marking Molto grazioso. It is believed that Beethoven intended to add the piece to a cycle of bagatelles.[6]

Whatever the validity of Nohl's edition, an editorial peculiarity of it involves whether the second right-hand note in bar 7, that is, the first note of the three-note upbeat figure that characterizes the main melody, is an E4 or a D4. Nohl's score gives E4 in bar 7 but D4 in all parallel passages. Many editions change all the figures to begin with E4 until the final bars, where D4 is used and resolved by adding a C to the final A octave. But the use of D4 in bar 7 can be traced to a draft Beethoven wrote that is today housed in the Beethoven-Haus Bonn.[7] Another point in favor of D4 is that the ascending seventh of the motive in this form is repeated in sequence in bars 9 to 11, which begin the second section of the principal theme.[8]

The pianist and musicologist Luca Chiantore argues in his thesis and his 2010 book Beethoven al piano (new Italian edition: Beethoven al pianoforte, 2014) that Beethoven might not have given the piece the form in which we know it today. Chiantore suggests that the original signed manuscript, which Nohl claimed to have transcribed, might not have existed.[9] On the other hand, Barry Cooper wrote, in a 1984 essay in The Musical Times, that one of two surviving sketches closely resembles the published version.[10]

Identity of "Elise"

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It is not certain who "Elise" was, although scholars have suggested possibilities. Evidence suggests that "Elise" was a close friend of Beethoven and probably an important figure in his life.

Therese Malfatti

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Therese Malfatti, widely believed to have been the dedicatee of "Für Elise"

Max Unger suggested that Nohl may have transcribed the title incorrectly and the original work may have been named "Für Therese",[11] a reference to Therese Malfatti von Rohrenbach zu Dezza. She was a friend and student of Beethoven's to whom he supposedly proposed in 1810, and who married the Austrian nobleman and state official Wilhelm von Droßdik in 1816.[12] The piano sonata no. 24, dedicated to Countess Thérèse von Brunswick, is also sometimes called "für Therese". The Austrian musicologist Michael Lorenz[13] has shown that Rudolf Schachner, who inherited Therese von Droßdik's musical scores in 1851, was the son of Babette Bredl, born out of wedlock. In 1865, Bredl let Nohl copy the autograph in her possession. Robert Greenberg, who teaches music through The Great Courses and at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, has said that Beethoven's sloppy handwriting might easily have led anyone to misread "Für Therese" as "Für Elise".[citation needed]

Elisabeth Röckel

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A portrait of Elizabeth Röckel.
Portrait of Elisabeth Röckel by Joseph Willibrord Mähler
Anna Milder-Hauptmann, letter to "Frau Kapellmeisterin Elise Hummel", 1830

According to a 2010 study by Klaus Martin Kopitz, there is evidence that the piece was written for the 17-year-old German soprano singer Elisabeth Röckel, the younger sister of Joseph August Röckel, who played Florestan in the 1806 revival of Beethoven's opera Fidelio. "Elise", as she was called by a parish priest (she later called herself "Betty"), had been a friend of Beethoven's since 1808,[14] and according to Kopitz, he may have wanted to marry her.[15] But in April 1810 Elisabeth Röckel got an engagement at the theater in Bamberg, where she made her stage debut as Donna Anna in Mozart's Don Giovanni and became a friend of the writer E. T. A. Hoffmann.[16] In 1811 Röckel returned to Vienna,[17] where in 1813 she married Beethoven's friend Johann Nepomuk Hummel.

In 2015 Kopitz published more material about Beethoven's relationship to Röckel and "Für Elise". It shows that she was also a close friend of Anna Milder-Hauptmann and lived with her and her brother Joseph August in the Theater an der Wien. In an 1830 letter to Röckel, Milder-Hauptmann called her "Elise".[18]

In 2020 an extended English version of Kopitz's essay was published with some new sources.[19]

Elise Barensfeld

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In 2014, the Canadian musicologist Rita Steblin suggested that Elise Barensfeld might be the dedicatee. Born in Regensburg and treated for a while as a child prodigy, she first took concert tours with Beethoven's friend Johann Nepomuk Mälzel, also from Regensburg, and then lived with him for some time in Vienna, where she received singing lessons from Antonio Salieri. Steblin argues that Beethoven dedicated this work to the 13-year-old Barensfeld as a favor to Therese Malfatti, who lived opposite Mälzel's and Barensfeld's residence and might have given her piano lessons.[20] Steblin says her hypothesis is uncertain.[21]

Music

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The piece can be heard as a five-part rondo in the form A-B-A-C-A. It is in A minor and in 3
8 time. It begins with the refrain (A), a flowing melody in binary form marked Poco moto (literally "a little motion", a marking that appears nowhere else in Beethoven's works), with an arpeggiated accompaniment. The unaccompanied oscillation between the dominant E and its chromatic lower neighbor D♯ that begins the melody has become one of the most recognizable openings in classical music, but it also serves as a main topic of musical discussion. The digression at measure 9 glances at the relative major before returning to the original theme and key, preceded by a prolongation of the dominant, E, that extends the opening lower-neighbor oscillation. The pitch outline of these bars, E-F-E-D-C-B, i.e. an upper-neighbor ascent to F5 followed by a descending scale, also forms the basis of the two episodes, B and C, thus unifying the piece. The B section that begins in bar 23 is in the submediant, F major. Its theme begins by tracing the above outline in somewhat elaborated fashion and modulates to the dominant, followed by 32nd-note runs repeating a cadential progression in C major in a codetta-like passage. (The chordal three-note upbeats in the left hand are anticipated by the transition to this episode in bar 22.) This suggests a rather expansive form, but Beethoven suddenly returns to the dominant of A minor in bar 34, once again lingering on E and its lower neighbor and leading to an exact repeat of the A section. Although another nominal episode follows (C) at bar 59, it does not leave the tonic and is rather coda-like, unfolding over a tonic pedal and emphatically cadencing in the home key. Once again, there are unifying relationships with previous material. The melody retraces the descending outline alluded to earlier, and the cadence in bars 66–67 is an augmented version of the theme's cadence in bars 7–8. After a glance at a Neapolitan harmony (B-flat major) and a cadence at bar 76 that brings the music to a complete halt for the only time, an ascending A minor arpeggio and a chromatic descent over two octaves follows, sort of a cadenza in tempo, leading to a final repetition of the A section. The piece concludes without a postlude.

Kopitz presents the finding by the German organ scholar Johannes Quack [de] that the letters that spell Elise can be decoded as the first three notes of the piece. Because E♭ is called Es in German and pronounced "S", we have E–(L)–(I)–S–E: E–(L)–(I)–E♭–E, which by enharmonic equivalence sounds the same as the written notes E–(L)–(I)–D♯–E.[13][22]

Incipit:

\new PianoStaff << \time 3/8 \new Staff = "up" { \tempo "Poco moto" 4=70 \set Score.tempoHideNote = ##t \partial 8 e''16\pp dis'' e'' dis'' e'' b' d'' c'' a'8 r16 c' e' a' b'8 r16 e' gis' b' c''8 r16 e' e'' dis'' e'' dis'' e'' b' d'' c'' } \new Staff = "down" { \clef bass \set Staff.pedalSustainStyle = #'bracket \partial 8 r8 R8*3 a,16\pp\sustainOn e a r8. e,16\sustainOff\sustainOn e gis r8. a,16\sustainOff\sustainOn e a r8. R8*3\sustainOff } >>

Popularity

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"Für Elise" is widely recognized. It is of intermediate difficulty, graded at a level 7 out of 10 by The Royal Conservatory of Music.[23] Many children's toys incorporate the tune. In Taiwan, it is one of two melodies played on garbage trucks to alert residents of their presence; the other is Maiden's Prayer.[24] In Sri Lanka the melody is used to announce the presence of tuk tuks, from which bread is sold.[25]

In the early 2000s, "Für Elise" had become a standard ringtone, and nearly every ringtone website featured at least one version.[26]

Mina Yang suggests that the melody is popular because the first eight bars can so easily be adapted into a limited "sonic palette", making the melody well-suited to ringtones and music boxes. Moreover, the first eight bars have some interesting structural properties:

The opening chromatic trill allows immediate identification of the work. The first four antecedent bars are answered neatly by the next four consequent bars, and then the whole eight bars can be looped and repeated ad infinitum.[26]

Piano demos

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"Für Elise" is on the piano playlist on Yamaha's YDP-101 digital piano model, featuring 50 piano tracks. It is track #12 on the YDP-101 model.[27] On the YDP-101S model, it is track #1.[citation needed] It is also one of the demo tracks on the Casio Privia PX-110 digital piano, where it is listed as track #24 of 59.[28]

Notes

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  1. ^ Assuming that Beethoven's Op. 33 Bagatelles are numbers 1 to 7, Op. 119 Bagatelles are numbers 8 to 18 and Op. 126 Bagatelles are numbers 19 to 24

References

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  1. ^ William Kinderman, The Cambridge Companion to Beethoven, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, p. 125–126, ISBN 978-0-521-58934-5
  2. ^ Dorothy de Val, The Cambridge Companion to the piano, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, p. 131, ISBN 978-0-521-47986-8, "Beethoven is here [in the 1892 Repertory of select pianoforte works] only by 'Für Elise', but there is a better representation of later composers such as Schubert ..., Chopin ..., Schumann ... and some Liszt."
  3. ^ Morton Manus, Alfred's Basic Adult All-In-One Piano Course, Book 3, New York: Alfred Publishing, p. 132, ISBN 978-0-7390-0068-7
  4. ^ Fuld, James J. (2000). The Book of World-famous Music: Classical, Popular, and Folk. Courier Dover Publications. p. 241. ISBN 978-0-486-41475-1.
  5. ^ Ludwig Nohl, ed. (1867). Neue Briefe Beethovens. Stuttgart: Cotta'sche Buchhandlung. p. 28.
  6. ^ Ludwig van Beethoven, Klavierstück a-Moll WoO 59 "Für Elise". Kritische Ausgabe mit Faksimile der Handschrift BH 116, Skizzentranskription und Kommentar. Sieghard Brandenburg, Bonn 2002, pp. 8 and 15
  7. ^ Oppermann, Annette (30 November 2011). "Beethoven, Für Elise WoO 59 – Do you strike the right note?". G. Henle Verlag. Retrieved 19 May 2023.
  8. ^ Für Elise – the piece students love and teachers love to hate on YouTube, 30-minute talk by Prof. Dr. Joachim Reinhuber
  9. ^ Luca Chiantore: Beethoven al piano. Barcelona: Nortesur, 2010, p. 333–360, ISBN 978-84-937357-6-0
  10. ^ Alex Ross (16 October 2009). "Who Wrote 'Für Elise'?". The New Yorker.
  11. ^ Max Unger, translated by Theodore Baker, "Beethoven and Therese von Malfatti," The Musical Quarterly 11, no. 1 (1925): 63–72.
  12. ^ Michael Lorenz: "Baronin Droßdik und die verschneyten Nachtigallen. Biographische Anmerkungen zu einem Schubert-Dokument", Schubert durch die Brille 26, (Tutzing: Schneider, 2001), pp. 47–88.
  13. ^ a b Michael Lorenz: "'Die enttarnte Elise'. Die kurze Karriere der Elisabeth Röckel als Beethovens 'Elise'" Archived 29 April 2017 at the Wayback Machine, Bonner Beethoven-Studien vol. 9, (Bonn 2011), 169–90.
  14. ^ Kopitz, Klaus Martin (2010). Beethoven, Elisabeth Röckel und das Albumblatt "Für Elise". Cologne: Dohr. ISBN 978-3-936655-87-2.
  15. ^ Kopitz 2015, p. 55.
  16. ^ Kopitz 2015, p. 53f..
  17. ^ Kopitz 2015, p. 54.
  18. ^ Kopitz, Klaus Martin (January 2015). "Beethovens 'Elise' Elisabeth Röckel. Neue Aspekte zur Entstehung und Überlieferung des Klavierstücks WoO 59" (PDF). Die Tonkunst [de]. 9 (1): 48–57.
  19. ^ Kopitz, Klaus Martin (Winter 2020). "Beethoven's 'Elise' Elisabeth Röckel: a forgotten love story and a famous piano piece" (PDF). The Musical Times. 161 (1953): 9–26.
  20. ^ "War Mälzels Sängerin auch Beethovens 'Elise'?" by Juan Martin Koch, Neue Musikzeitung, 15 November 2012 (in German)
  21. ^ "Geheimnis um Beethovens 'Elise' gelüftet?", Die Welt, 16 November 2012 (in German); Steblin, Rita: "Who was Beethoven's 'Elise'? A new solution to the mystery." In: The Musical Times 155 (2014), pp. 3–39
  22. ^ Kopitz 2010, pp. 50f.
  23. ^ Music, Royal Conservatory of Music (2022). Piano Syllabus. p. 60. ISBN 978-1-55440-953-2.
  24. ^ Qin, Amy; Chang Chien, Amy (8 February 2022). "When You Hear Beethoven, It's Time to Take Out the Trash (and Mingle)". Archived from the original on 9 February 2022. Retrieved 12 August 2023.
  25. ^ "Sri Lanka's musical 'choon paan' bread trucks". www.bbc.com. Retrieved 2 November 2024.
  26. ^ a b Yang, Mina (1 February 2006). "Für Elise, circa 2000: Postmodern Readings of Beethoven in Popular Contexts". Popular Music and Society. 29 (1): 1–15. doi:10.1080/03007760500142613. ISSN 0300-7766. S2CID 191457480.
  27. ^ "Yamaha Digital Piano YDP-101 Owner's Manual - Demo and Piano Song List" (PDF). Manuals Library. 29 July 2003. p. 33.
  28. ^ Casio Computer Co, Ltd (28 March 2006). "Privia PX-110 User's Guide - Appendix - Song List" (PDF). p. A-1. Retrieved 3 July 2025.
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