Bagatelle in A Minor

For all the influence his sonatas and Diabelli Variations exerted, Beethoven’s best-known piano piece is likely to be the unassuming little bagatelle “Für Elise.” Composed around 1810 but never published during his lifetime, it bears a simplicity that places it well within the ability of even the most modest amateur pianist: Indeed, there can barely be a piano pupil who hasn’t played it. Of the mysterious Elise of the title, though, there is no trace. The piece is often assumed to have been composed as a gift for a certain Therese Malfatti, one of a string of young women to whom Beethoven plighted his unsuccessful troth. The manuscript was discovered in her effects after her death in 1851; it is now lost, so we will never know, but it most likely said “Für Therese” in Beethoven’s famously illegible scrawl. Nevertheless, it is a delightful gift, made instantly recognizable by its rocking melody and characteristic broken-chord accompaniment.