Für Elise music box
Ask someone to hum a music box tune and there is a good chance you will hear Für Elise. Its rocking opening notes feel as if they were written for a turning cylinder.
- Tune
- Für Elise
- Composer
- Ludwig van Beethoven
- Origin
- Bagatelle in A minor, WoO 59, composed 1810
The story behind the tune
Beethoven wrote the piece in 1810, but he never published it. It was discovered and printed in 1867, forty years after his death, by the scholar Ludwig Nohl, who copied it from a manuscript that has since been lost.
Nobody is certain who “Elise” was. One popular theory is that Nohl misread the name and the piece was really for Therese Malfatti, a pupil Beethoven hoped to marry; others point to the singer Elisabeth Röckel. The mystery has only added to its charm.
How it sounds on a music box
The famous back-and-forth opening keeps its sparkle on a music box comb, and the melody is clear and memorable even when the piano accompaniment is pared away. Final arrangements for the Musical Drawer are still being developed.
Lovely for
- Budding piano players
- A dressing-table or keepsake drawer
- Anyone who loves classical music