Für Elise: The Woman, the Mystery, and the Melody

One of the most familiar piano pieces in the world may have the wrong woman's name on it.

Beethoven wrote the piece we call Für Elise around 1810, but he never published it. The manuscript later disappeared. When Ludwig Nohl finally printed the music in 1867, he said it was dedicated “Für Elise.” Perhaps he read it correctly. Perhaps the page actually said “Für Therese.” Nobody can check.

This episode follows the mystery of Elise, but also the stranger life of the melody itself. Those first few notes have escaped the piano lesson and turned up in Charlie Brown, French chanson, Giorgio Moroder, Italian pop, heavy metal, Whitney Houston, Nas, K-pop and Jon Batiste.

Almost everyone who borrows the piece keeps the same little turn between E and D sharp. It is hesitant, instantly recognizable, and apparently impossible to kill.

Along the way, the episode asks a simpler question: why did this tiny unpublished bagatelle become one of the melodies everybody knows?