The beauty moved Beethoven and used to dedicate the music to his beloved. His work Für Elise was believed to have been written for his student Therese Malfatti. This work belongs to the musical genre of the bagatelle — a short, light piece, usually for piano, characterized by a relatively simple technique. Although bagatelles existed before him, Beethoven was the composer who elevated the genre and gave it artistic importance, composing several sets of such works. Für Elise is the most famous example of this musical form in Beethoven’s output. Some of the composer’s biographers believe that the work was not dedicated to “Elise” but to Therese , and that the change of name was the result of a copyist’s error. If this theory is correct, the piece was almost certainly dedicated to Beethoven’s student Therese Malfatti. At the time, Beethoven was in love with his young pupil and composed the piece with her technical abilities in mind. The work was written in 1810 but was not ...
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