It's all about the classical music composers and their works from the last 400 years and much more about music. Hier erfahren Sie alles über die klassischen Komponisten und ihre Meisterwerke der letzten vierhundert Jahre und vieles mehr über Klassische Musik.
Written 212 years ago by Ludwig van Beethoven, ‘Für Elise’ gets a whole new makeover when you flip the piece upside down...
For April Fools Day 2021, the online community of score video makers were challenged with creating “twisted versions” of Beethoven’s solo piano work, Für Elise.
Videos ranged from turning the piece from a 3/8 time signature to 4/4, to nonsensical scores which placed each hand of the performer in different keys.
However, for Italian composer and video score maker, Stefano Paparozzi, his take came one year later... and his version was definitely worth waiting for.
In Paparozzi’s ‘twisted’ version of Für Elise, the score is turned upside down and transposed, so that the left hand now carries the melody. It’s a darker, brooding score, with a disturbing sense of mystery – have a listen below. More tongue-in-cheek viewers have also expressed their delight that Beethoven can “finally be played in Australia!”.
The more creative among the comments section have detailed how this bittersweet imagining of one of Beethoven’s most famous works, would work well as part of a film.
Inverting melodies or turning normally major melodies into minor is a common trick used in film scoring to highlight a change in tone during a story.
Paparozzi’s YouTube channel S.P.'s score videos has over 13,000 subscribers, and his videos of around 1,000 scores range from Baroque to early-20th Century music.
Since the success of his take on Für Elise, the composer has set up a dedicated YouTube channel for his Upside-Down Scores. So far he has taken on the challenge of creating upside-down versions of works by Bach, Chopin, and Mozart.
Will Smith looks back at the off-script scene where he surprised the pilot cast of Fresh Prince by performing Beethoven’s ‘Für Elise’ on piano.
In the pilot episode of the 90s American sitcom television series The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Will Smith performs Beethoven’s Für Elise on the piano for his onscreen Uncle Phil, played by James Avery.
The iconic scene is a fan-favourite, but until now, not many people knew that this scene was completely improvised.
In chapter three of Will Smith’s self-titled memoir, he reveals that he went against the crew’s directions for the original episode ending.
“The producers had originally planned on me sitting with my back to the piano so they could push the camera in on my face as I pondered the profundity of Uncle Phil's closing words,” writes Smith. “But when I sat down, I faced the piano, and began playing Mom-Mom’s favorite, Beethoven’s ‘Für Elise’.”
James Avery and Will Smith on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Picture: Alamy
The tense scene begins with Smith’s character exchanging tense words with Uncle Phil, as Smith accuses his uncle of forgetting his roots and where he comes from.
Phil replies, “Before you criticise somebody, you find out what he’s all about”, and ends the conversation by leaving Smith alone in the room after he refuses to listen to Smith’s side of story, therefore not taking his own advice.
When Smith starts playing the piano after his uncle has left, Phil returns to the doorway, unbeknownst to Smith’s character.
He watches on in subdued shock for a few moments, as he realises he may have misjudged Smith, and taps his hand thoughtfully against the doorframe as if he’s going to say something, before leaving once again.
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air ran from 1990-1996. Picture: Getty
Prior to the scene, Smith says that no one in the cast knew that the actor had previously had piano lessons. So when he started playing, “the set went silent as everyone realized this show was about to be special”.
Smith recalls: “The point of the scene had been to never judge a book by its cover. The producers were so inspired by this improvisational moment that they kept it, and it became the defining thematic premise of the entire series.”
And fans are in agreement with this inspirational moment. One commenter on an upload of the scene to YouTube remarks, “I love the ending of this scene. Uncle Phil sees potential in Will and misjudged him like he told Will not to.”
To find out that this heartfelt ending is completely improvised is just one of the reasons the show remains a beloved fan-favourite, and it’s easy to see how the show quickly became America’s highest-rated new sitcom in its first season.
Beethoven and Elisabeth Röckel. Picture: Getty/Goethe-Museum Düsseldorf
By Maddy Shaw Roberts, ClassicFM London
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It’s one of Beethoven’s best-known works – but the identity of its dedicatee has been the subject of years of confusion. Who actually was Elise?
Beethoven’s Bagatelle No. 25 in A minor is rarely referred to in such grandiose terms; instead, all who know and love it refer to it simply by its nickname, ‘Für Elise’ (German for ‘for Elise’).
But it’s a nickname that, frankly, should never have existed. Beethoven did indeed include a dedication on the manuscript, but it was ‘Für Therese’.
Poor Therese must have been slightly miffed when, thanks to a rather slapdash copywriter called Ludwig Nohl, the dedication on the published version of the work was changed to someone quite different.
Beethoven Performs For Friends In Vienna. Picture: Getty
So… who was Elise?
It is widely acknowledged that Therese, perhaps the true dedicatee of ‘Für Elise’, was Therese Malfatti, a woman to whom Beethoven proposed in 1810 – the same year he composed ‘Für Elise’. She was also the owner of the manuscript.
However, other researchers have suggested Elise could have been a German soprano named Elisabeth Röckel. Röckel played Florestan in Beethoven’s operaFidelio, and many sources show that Elisabeth often met with Beethoven, who fell in love with the young woman and wanted to marry her.
Elisabeth Röckel starred in Beethoven's opera Fidelio. Picture: Goethe-Museum Düsseldorf
Berlin musicologist Klaus Martin Kopitz said: “For years, I’ve been working on a publication called ‘Beethoven in the eyes of his contemporaries’, which includes all the reports from people who knew Beethoven personally: journals, letters, poems, memoires. Certain women are mentioned, and one of them was Elisabeth Roeckel.”
There is also a third candidate: another German soprano and friend of Beethoven called Elise Barensfeld. In 2012, musicologist Rita Steblin claimed Beethoven dedicated ‘Für Elise’ to Barensfeld.
Steblin thinks Therese Malfatti could have been Barensfeld’s piano teacher when she was 13, which is why Beethoven dedicated Elise the easy Bagatelle, “to do his beloved Therese a favour”.
Was Beethoven deaf when he composed ‘Für Elise’?
Beethoven composed the piece on 27 April 1810. At this stage, Beethoven’s hearing was getting gradually weaker.
The composer could apparently still hear some speech and music until 1812. But by the age of 44 (four years after he composed ‘Für Elise’), he was almost totally deaf and unable to hear voices.
As he got progressively more deaf, his pieces got higher and higher. This might account for the relatively high pitch of ‘Für Elise’, which reaches an E7 – two Es above a top soprano C.
The main refrain of 'Für Elise'. Picture: IMSLP
Nowadays, ‘Für Elise’ is undoubtedly one of Beethoven’s most famous works. It seems almost strange then that, at the time it was composed, the piece was relatively incidental.
It certainly didn’t provoke much of a reaction and apparently Beethoven himself was never fully satisfied with the work, returning to it some years later and trying, unsuccessfully in his eyes, to revise and refine it.
Ultimately, ‘Für Elise’ wasn’t even published until 1865, nearly forty years after Beethoven’s death on 26 March 1827.
