Für Elise or Für Therese?

1810 Ludwig van Beethoven gave the world a romantic piece for piano, with the dedication, 'For Therese, as a remembrance'.

Nowadays not a lot is known about Therese, though she was possibly Therese von Malfatti, the daughter of a Viennese medical doctor, and at the time the focus of Beethoven's affections. When the work was published in 1865, the discoverer of the piece, Ludwig Nohl, quite possibly mistranscribed the illegible title as 'Für Elise'.

Hear the tune at Google Video

Categories: music, history, biography