Why is Beethoven's Für Elise So Famous?

Für Elise has become one of the most widely recognizable classical pieces in the world. It has appeared in commercials, movies, and even garbage trucks in Taiwan. So how did it get so popular, and is it overrated? Sound Field hosts Nahre Sol and Arthur Buckner dive into the history and mystery surrounding Beethoven's most famous piece.

Arthur Buckner talks to 3rd grade piano student Ethan Choi about why Für Elise is his favorite piece to play on piano. Nahre Sol debates enthusiast Sean Chen on whether or not the song is overrated. Make sure to stay for the end to hear an original rendition of Für Elise by Andre Sims that gives Nahre and Arthur goosebumps.

Watch more Sound Field Below!

Why Don't Classical Musicians Improvise?

00:00 - Intro
01:57 - Für Elise History
03:19 - How Did it Get so Popular?
07:06 - The Case Against Für Elise
08:13 - The Case For Für Elise
11:10 - Für Elise's Legacy
11:55 - Andre Sims' Original Rendition

[NahreSol]

I had great fun returning for this episode!!! You all are great - even though you made me listen to Für Elise more times than I wanted to!!! 😂 Just kidding...🧡

[Jahu-qsus]

"Why do people only remember a piece called *Für Elise* and not my pieces?" - some composer writing Sonata No.523 or Prelude No. 264

[charlotteice]

I find it quite realistic that he has written it as kind of a gift for Elise Barensfeld, not as a love song, but as "here, I wrote something for you to play", I think. He would then maybe have given it to Therese so she could pass it on to Elise Barensfeld, bearing the label "für Elise" as in "this is meant for Elise". Then maybe Therese just sort of forgot about it.

[josephcarradine]

Fur Elise has always felt very dreamy to me, like walking through some strange dreamscape. Not necessarily melancholy or playful, just sort of otherworldly; and the lack of drama/simple loop/timelessness of the piece enforces that.

[SeanChenPiano]

Thanks so much for having me on this show! I vote to crowdfund a garbage truck from Taiwan and park it outside of Nahre's place (sorry neighbors)!

[zachheilman]

Ah this explains why Nahre was tired of this piece in her last video :)

[truecuckoo]

I appreciate this! Thanks! Coincidentally Für Elise was the first piece I learned on the piano as a kid, outside of my normal improv doodles and daydreaming. I loved the music teacher’s insight in how children might feel around finally being able to play this. I probably felt a bit like that too. I think it’s written for a child though, not a love interest. Had I received this by someone I would’ve felt, “niiice, this is a great little practice piece. I like it.” For a love interest I would’ve thought Beethoven had the ability to evoke grander feelings with the same simple means.

[fbritorufino]

In Brazil, Für Elise is historically linked to cooking gas delivery trucks -- it's famous as "musica do gás" here.

[pentalarclikesit]

Fur Elise certainly sounds a lot different when played by someone who doesn't like it. . . when you play it a bit faster than normal, with an extremely light touch while dismissing it a emotionless and lightweight, it will seem so. But I have heard Fur Elise also played slightly slower, with a little bit of hesitation on that first set of four notes. There is a lot more emotion there. Instead of allegro capriccio, think allegro non troppo malinconico. The song sounds and "feels" a lot different.

[Nitsuga]

Dudeee! That jazzy rendition at the end was amaazing! Love it!

[SeanMather]

I think it’s popular because it has this transformative property, depending on the speed it’s played. Played fast it’s kind of quick, and breezy, almost a little upbeat. Slow it down though, and it gets more melancholic. It’s also a very approachable piece for new classical fans, which is touched on in the video. If you’re going to introduce someone to classical music, it’s going to be an option for you to pick. While it’s not as impressive or as deep as other works, it does a good job at opening the door, and starts people down the path towards more complex pieces of work. It’s catchy, it’s hummable, and sure if you’ve heard it thousands of times you may think it’s overrated. But just imagine someone hearing it for the first time. It can open people to the power of classical music.

Look at it this way, if you want to take someone who likes pop music or Hip Hop and introduce them to Heavy Metal.... it’s probably not going to go well if you just throw on some Tool, it’s just too dense if you don’t know the structures it’s built upon. You need to work them up to something like that, start with some foundational stuff. Same for a lot of classical music, it’s dense, it goes all over the place, it’s full of emotion, and can just sound confusing if you’ve only ever heard a nursery rhyme or pop songs. That’s where the importance of Fur Elise is. You listen to it once, and you can get it. Then you hear it again, played a bit differently, and you go “oh, there’s more to this”. Then when you’re hooked on it and ready for another piece, you’re starting looking for things now, changes in tempo, different emotions. It lays the groundwork for greater things to build on it. That’s why it wasn’t considered important when it came out by experts, but when the masses who hadn’t spent their life immersed in “classical” music heard it, and could play it, and transform it, of course it became popular.

So overplayed, probably. Overrated, not at all.

[therealandrew]

I think if we've learned anything about "famous" music, it does not have to be especially profound. It just has to get stuck in your head.
It's marketing 101. Like creating a logo, a company motto or a jingle

[inazumagou]

If your school had piano, chances are you've heard this song at least 4521 times.

[alexandrostype-]

7:28 But the dog loves the song, and that's all that matters ❤

[jzltrz]

The main melody is pretty fascinating, it sounds like an improvisation or an impromptu but its incredibly catchy and recognizable, people who dislike it proly heard it too much but its without doubt a masterpiece

[trevinodude]

I loved that jazzy version of Fur Elise at the end because of how unexpected it twisted and turned the song into something exciting. Like a journey that starts on a path you’ve walked a thousand times before you decide, “You know what… I’mma take a turn here and see where I end up.” That was awesome.

[koshersalaami]

I find Fuer Elise useful because I’ve figured out a way to use it to teach non-classical players and listeners how to listen to and approach classical music. Here’s what I do with it:

I start by playing a melody with chords consisting of the first note of each measure. So, A over A minor, B over E Major, C over A minor, etc. All the way through the section with a big pause where the octaves ascend followed by what is a sort of slow trill. I play it as monotonously as possible, deliberately. I want to bore my listener.

I then take that section and say: OK, now when I play it I’m going to get louder as I go up in pitch, get softer as I go down in pitch, free up the tempo because I’m playing alone, and if I repeat a section I might play it softer for variety. Then I play the same tune exaggerating dynamics and rubato. When I do the E/C Major, D/G Major, C/A minor, B/E major section, I drastically slow down and get way softer. I want the changes dramatic. Now I’ve shown my audience what dynamics does to the music, keeping in mind that most other genres don’t worry about dynamics to the same extent that classical does.

Then I tell them that I didn’t really play a complete piece, really sort of a skeleton of one (not a technical term) and that I’m about to put all the notes back but you’ll still hear the melody I just played twice interpreted in the second way at about the same tempo as they just heard it. Now they get the idea that they’re listening for melodies within melodies, another classical thing.

The melody I isolated was arbitrary but not completely. Your ear goes for down beats anyway, so on the downbeats look for scalar or arpeggiated patterns. This one is scalar. This works, but only as long as the notes on the downbeats are within the chord. If they’re not, if they’re a bit more dissonant, we’re looking at something else. Fortunately, this being a teaching piece, the very next section has downbeats with dissonances/suspensions. What you do there is emphasize the dissonance, which usually resolves the next note and you play the next note softer because it’s both a relaxation of tension and off the beat. In this section, which starts in F Major, there’s a descending melodic scale which you can approach in two ways and either works: either as a straight descending scale or as a series of downbeat dissonances that resolve on the next note and so the descending scale is comprised of pairs of suspension/resolution.

Then we get to the pedal tone section. If you’re a hack or not paying attention, all the notes come out the same loudness and it sounds a little flashy, at least for a beginner. But let’s look at pedal tones. They’re the same note repeated over and over, no melodic variation, no rhythmic variation, and they’re all off the beat, so treat them as the textural embellishment they are and de-emphasize them. What goes against them is an ascending scale. Put a crescendo on that and the passage sounds musical.

This whole process takes maybe ten minutes and I’ve taught a whole lot about how to approach classical music. They begin to get the idea as to why there might be a hundred or so recordings of the Pathetique, all using the same notes except for repeats and ornaments on the beat or before it.

As a piece of music to listen to, maybe. As a piece of music to teach with, fantastic. And it was written as a teaching piece to our knowledge.

[MrSpeakerCone]

8:08 "I feel like I can breathe very easily during Fur Elise", it seems like the reason you dislike it is exactly the reason I love it so much; listening to it feels like an invitation to breathe for a bit. Much as I agree that Pathetique makes me hold my breath, there's only so long I can do that before I need to breathe again.
Also, thank you for making awesome things :)

[boom]

I remember when I played this at school after I finished people were congratulating me on how good my improv skills were because I played the entire piece and most people only knew the opening.

[pinoynobody]

The biggest irony in this is that Beethoven himself never intended for this piece to reach public ears, and yet this piece is the most recognizable one by Beethoven. The manuscript for Fur Elise was discovered post-mortem?! Bizarre!