Für Elise
Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox musical composition Bagatelle No. 25Template:Efn in A minor (WoOTemplate:Spaces59, BiaTemplate:Spaces515) for solo piano, commonly known as "Für Elise" (Template:IPA, Template:Translation), is one of Ludwig van Beethoven's most popular compositions.<ref>William Kinderman, The Cambridge Companion to Beethoven, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, Template:Pp., Template:ISBN</ref><ref>Dorothy de Val, The Cambridge Companion to the piano, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, p. 131, Template:ISBN, "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."</ref><ref>Morton Manus, Alfred's Basic Adult All-In-One Piano Course, Book 3, New York: Alfred Publishing, p. 132, Template:ISBN</ref> 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 Template:Lang. The identity of "Elise" is unknown; researchers have suggested Therese Malfatti, Elisabeth Röckel, and Elise Barensfeld.
History
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").<ref name="Fuld2000">Template:Cite book</ref> 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.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
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.<ref>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</ref>
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 beginning 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.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> 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.<ref>Template:YouTube, 30-minute talk by Prof. Dr. Joachim Reinhuber</ref>
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.<ref>Luca Chiantore: Beethoven al piano. Barcelona: Nortesur, 2010, p. 333–360, Template:ISBN</ref> 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.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>
Identity of "Elise"
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
Max Unger suggested that Nohl may have transcribed the title incorrectly and the original work may have been named "Für Therese",<ref>Max Unger, translated by Theodore Baker, "Beethoven and Therese von Malfatti," The Musical Quarterly 11, no. 1 (1925): 63–72.</ref> 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.<ref>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.</ref> The piano sonata no. 24, dedicated to Countess Thérèse von Brunswick, is also sometimes called "für Therese". The Austrian musicologist Michael Lorenz<ref name=ML>Michael Lorenz: "'Die enttarnte Elise'. Die kurze Karriere der Elisabeth Röckel als Beethovens 'Elise'" Template:Webarchive, Bonner Beethoven-Studien vol. 9, (Bonn 2011), 169–90.</ref> 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".Template:Citation needed
Elisabeth Röckel
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,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and according to Kopitz, he may have wanted to marry her.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn In 1811 Röckel returned to Vienna,Template:Sfn 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".<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
In 2020 an extended English version of Kopitz's essay was published with some new sources.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Elise Barensfeld
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.<ref>"War Mälzels Sängerin auch Beethovens 'Elise'?" by Juan Martin Koch, Neue Musikzeitung, 15 November 2012 Template:In lang</ref> Steblin says her hypothesis is uncertain.<ref>"Geheimnis um Beethovens 'Elise' gelüftet?", Die Welt, 16 November 2012 Template:In lang; Steblin, Rita: "Who was Beethoven's 'Elise'? A new solution to the mystery." In: The Musical Times 155 (2014), pp. 3–39</ref>
Music
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 [[time signature|Template:Music 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-sharp 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 Template:Ill that the letters that spell Elise can be decoded as the first three notes of the piece. Because ETemplate:Music is called Es in German and pronounced "S", we have E–(L)–(I)–S–E: E–(L)–(I)–ETemplate:Music–E, which by enharmonic equivalence sounds the same as the written notes E–(L)–(I)–DTemplate:Music–E.<ref name=ML />Template:Sfn
Incipit: <score sound="1"> \new PianoStaff <<
\time 3/8
\new Staff = "up" {
\tempo "Poco moto" 4=70
\set Score.tempoHideNote = ##t
\partial 8 e16\pp dis
e dis e b' d c
a'8 r16 c' e' a'
b'8 r16 e' gis' b'
c8 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
}
>> </score>
Popularity
"Für Elise" is widely recognized. It is of intermediate difficulty, graded at a level 7 out of 10 by The Royal Conservatory of Music.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> 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.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
"Für Elise" has become a standard ringtone, and nearly every ringtone website features at least one version.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite journal</ref>
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.<ref name=":0" />
Piano demos
"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.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> On the YDP-101S model, it is track #1.Template:Fact 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.<ref name="casio-privia-px-110-manual">Template:Cite web</ref>
Notes
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References
External links
- Template:IMSLP
- "Für Elise" at the Mutopia Project
- Template:Cantorion
- 1822 revised version
- Michael Lorenz: "Maria Eva Hummel. A Postscript", Vienna 2013
- Michael Lorenz: "A Letter to the Editor of The Musical Times", Vienna 2014
- The Music Professor: "You've Never Heard This Version of Für Elise"
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