Für Elise, WoO 59
in A minor · WoO 59
Ludwig van Beethoven 1770–1827
A minor
Key
Poco moto
Tempo
WoO 59
Catalogue
Score
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Difficulty
Our estimate Intermediate
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Themes & character
Tender nostalgia·Rondo form·Salon miniature·Beloved mystery
At a glance
- Catalogue
- WoO 59
- Key
- A minor
- Tempo / character
- Poco moto
About the piece
A bagatelle in A minor and one of the most instantly recognizable pieces ever written for the piano. Beethoven wrote it around 1810 but never published it. The manuscript surfaced only in 1867, four decades after his death, when the musicologist Ludwig Nohl found it among the papers of a former pupil, Babette Bredl, and gave it its now famous title.
Who "Elise" actually was has never been settled. One long-standing theory holds that Nohl misread the dedication and that the piece was really "für Therese," for Therese Malfatti, a young woman Beethoven is thought to have proposed to around that time.
The gentle rocking theme, built on a single wavering semitone, returns between two contrasting episodes. The second of these is far stormier and more demanding than the famous opening melody suggests, which is part of why the piece works equally well for a careful beginner and a returning amateur.
The composer
Ludwig van Beethoven
1770–1827
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer, conductor, and pianist. Regarded as one of the greatest composers in the history of Western music, he was mentored during the Classical period, and his musical style was a key driver of the transition to Romantic music, and the expansion of instrumental forms such as the symphony, the piano sonata and the string quartet. His compositions have attracted extraordinary casual and scholarly interest, and remain among the most performed in the world.
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