“Beethoven wrote his Bagatelle No. 25 in A minor, better known as ‘Für Elise’, in 1810, but it wasn’t published until 1867, 40 years after his death,” (ClassicFM). “It’s one of the first pieces learner pianists play on the piano; open a little music box, and there’s a good chance you’ll hear it’s charming melody. But although it seems like quite a simple piece, it turns out that ‘Für Elise’ is a actually a really sophisticated piece of music: well, it was written by Beethoven after all. When the music was being transcribed, Beethoven’s handwriting was misread. The text on the manuscript actually read ‘Für Therese’. It is widely acknowledged that Therese was Therese Malfatti, a woman to whom Beethoven proposed in 1810 – the same year he composed ‘Für Elise’.
The piece is in rondo form, where the main theme appears three times, separated by contrasting sections. The shape of the piece in Rondo form can be summarised as ABACA, where A is the main theme, and B and C are the two development sections.”
Starting in A minor, there’s a shift to F major at 1:15 and a return to A minor at 1:44.
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