Für Elise and Moonlight Sonata, Beethoven’s Musical Legacy

Two of Beethoven’s most famous pieces for the piano, Für Elise and Moonlight Sonata, are both very romantic and beautiful music pieces he composed and dedicated to beloved women in his life. His muses were both students of his, and the works they inspired, Für Elise and Moonlight Sonata, have become an everlasting part of Beethoven’s musical legacy. 

Going deeper behind the music to understand these works, we can appreciate Beethoven’s mood and enjoy the melodies, the romantic and classical styles that Beethoven composed. The beautiful and varied movements of each of these pieces are forever recorded as special, beloved dedications.  

Who is the Elise in Beethoven’s Für Elise?

Beethoven composes a little piece for piano, and he dedicates it to a girl he was in love with in 1810. No one knows who Elise really was! But most likely, she was Therese Malfatti, the woman who broke Beethoven's heart. Beethoven proposed marriage to Therese Malfatti in 1810, the same year the piece was written, but she declined. Composed in A Minor’s key, Beethoven gives this piece a sad, wistful tone full of longing and nostalgic feeling.

Not published during his lifetime, Für Elise was discovered 40 years after his death in 1867. His handwriting misread undergoing transcription, allowing the piece to be known forever as Für Elise rather than Für Therese. Also, the original autograph copy of Für Elise was found among Therese Malfatti’s personal papers many years after Beethoven’s death.  

Why is Für Elise Popular?

Für Elise, one of the most popular pieces in music history, is not only enjoyed by piano students of all levels, but the music can be heard in A Charlie Brown Christmas when the Peanuts character Schroeder performs the piece. The melody has been used in popular culture in commercials for McDonald's, Adidas, and even Doritos. You can hear it in TV episodes of The Simpsons, Modern Family, Futurama, and The Sopranos.  

One of the reasons Für Elise is so famous is that it is one of the critical piano pieces that piano teachers teach their students. You can download the sheet music as a free simple version of Für Elise with fingerings or the unabridged, complete Für Elise version with fingerings. Begin playing Für Elise yourself, or get started playing Beethoven with a classically trained piano teacher.

Who is the Woman in the Moonlight?

Sonata Op. 27 no. 2 was published in 1802 under the title Sonata quasi una Fantasia. Beethoven dedicated this piece to his piano student, Countess Giulietta Guicciardi. Beethoven began giving Giulietta lessons in 1801 when she was 18.  She was so beautiful that people called her “La Bella Guicciardi.” Giulietta was an Austrian countess, and as an aristocrat, Beethoven realized the marriage was never going to be likely.  It’s generally agreed that she is the “dear, enchanting girl” he refers to in a letter to his friend Franz Wegeler. He confided to Wegeler that he was thinking of marriage but that the aristocratic young woman wasn’t of his station.

The Sonata was later named the Moonlight Sonata when the German Romantic poet Ludwig Rellstab published a review in the 1830s, years after Beethoven's death. Relistab likened the first movement of the piece to a boat floating in the moonlight on Switzerland's Lake Lucerne, and as such, it has been known since as Moonlight Sonata.  

The famous Moonlight Sonata is in three movements, with the first movement very romantic, slow, and beautiful. Beethoven's student Carl Czerny called the first movement "a nocturnal scene, in which a mournful ghostly voice sounds from a distance."  Lessonface piano teacher Cristiana Pegorara explains the last movement to us as the biggest, the grandest and is the center of the Sonata full of velocity, fierceness, and emotion.

Download the Sheet Music for Für Elise and Moonlight Sonata and Start Playing 

You can download the sheet music as a free simple version of Für Elise and Moonlight Sonata with fingerings and the unabridged, complete versions with fingerings.