How to play Für Elise on piano, starting with the easy version
To play Für Elise, start with its famous opening section, the A section. It's the part everyone knows, you play it three times in the piece, and it's far easier than the two middle sections. Learn it first in an easy version, with both hands close to middle C, then move to the original, where the left hand plays wider broken chords lower down. The full piece, with its two contrasting episodes, is an intermediate piece.
Für Elise Beginner–Intermediate comes in three versions in the PianoKite library: a beginner version of the A section (about 50 seconds) and two full versions at level 3.
Für Elise in brief
Its formal title is Bagatelle No. 25 in A minor, WoO 59. Beethoven's manuscript is dated 27 April 1810, but the piece wasn't published in his lifetime: Ludwig Nohl found it and published it in 1867, forty years after Beethoven's death. Who "Elise" was is still debated. The tempo marking is Poco moto, "with a little motion": not fast. (Source: Wikipedia.)
How is Für Elise structured?
Für Elise is a five-part rondo: A–B–A–C–A. The theme comes back between two different episodes.
| Section | What happens | Difficulty |
|---|---|---|
| A | A minor. The E–D♯ figure, answered by broken chords shared between the hands; a short phrase in C major; then the theme again. | The easiest part, and the one in the beginner version. |
| B (from bar 23) | F major, brighter. A singing right-hand melody over quick left-hand broken chords, a fast run down, then a passage of quick notes over C major, before a bridge leads back to the theme. | Harder: faster notes and more movement. |
| A | The theme returns. | You already know it. |
| C (from bar 59) | Stays in A minor, over a pedal point: the left hand repeats a low A again and again while the right hand plays dark chords. It ends with a broken-chord climb up through several octaves and a chromatic scale falling back to the theme. | The hardest part: stamina in the left hand and the big climb. |
| A | The theme a last time, ending in A minor. | You already know it. |
Because the A section is played three times, it makes up well over half of the piece. Learn it thoroughly and you've learned most of Für Elise.
Für Elise piano notes: the opening in letters
Here is the A section's main phrase, note by note. The right hand starts on the second E above middle C. The left hand's A is the second A below middle C, so the two hands start far apart.
- Right hand: E D♯ E D♯ E B D C A
- Left hand: A E A · Right hand: C E A B
- Left hand: E E G♯ · Right hand: E G♯ B C
- Left hand: A E A · Right hand: E, and the opening again
- Right hand: E D♯ E D♯ E B D C A
- Left hand: A E A · Right hand: C E A B
- Left hand: E E G♯ · Right hand: E C B A
The bold notes land on the first beat of a bar, where the left hand comes in. The D♯ is the black key just below E. The whole phrase uses only two chords: A minor (A, C, E) and E major (E, G♯, B), which is why the same few notes keep coming back.
A fingering that suits most hands: play the E–D♯ alternation with two neighbouring fingers, such as 4 and 5 or 3 and 4, so the hand stays still, and arrange it so the thumb lands on the A. Whatever you choose, write it down and keep it.
Easy Für Elise vs the original
The beginner version in the library keeps the A section, including the short phrase in C major, and changes three things:
- Both hands stay near middle C. The left hand plays its broken chords as A–C–E and G♯–D–E around middle C, instead of the low, wide A–E–A and E–E–G♯ of the original.
- The rhythm is even. Almost everything is steady eighth notes, so there's nothing hard to count.
- The right hand barely moves. The melody stays within about an octave, from G♯ to F.
The two level 3 versions are the full piece. One is the Mutopia Project edition, about two minutes; the other, about three minutes, plays the repeats.
If you can't read music yet, the beginner course builds up to the opening of Für Elise in unit 9, Minor Moods: you find D♯ and E, copy the rocking figure by ear, play the opening, and then play it from the score at half speed.
A section-by-section plan
Learn Für Elise in the order of difficulty, not the order of the score. How long each step takes depends on your experience, so move on when a step is clean, not after a set number of days.
- Listen. Play the preview on the Für Elise page a few times and follow the notes as they fall onto the keyboard. Notice how often the theme returns.
- The easy version, hands separately. Right hand first, in Wait mode, then the left hand's broken chords.
- The easy version, hands together. Slowly, then at 50%, 75% and full speed. When it's clean, you can play Für Elise for people.
- The original A section. Same melody, but the left hand now plays low and wide, and the broken chord passes from the left hand to the right. Practise the joins: the last left-hand note and the first right-hand note should sound like one smooth line.
- The bridge back to the theme. Just before the A section returns, the left hand moves up into the right hand's register and the two hands share the E–D♯ figure. Learn this handover on its own.
- The B section. Left-hand broken chords first, then the right-hand melody, then together. Loop the fast run and the quick-note passage over C major at a slow tempo.
- The C section. The repeated low A in the left hand, alone, until it's light and even; then the right-hand chords; then the climb and the chromatic scale as a separate exercise.
- Put it together. Play from the start of one section into the next, so the joins are practised as often as the sections. Then the whole piece, at 75% before 100%.
The general method behind this plan is in how to practise a new piano piece, and Wait mode explained covers the first steps of each section.
The hard parts, and how to fix them
The E–D♯ alternation
The most common problem is playing it too fast and too loud. The opening should be gentle, and the tempo is only "a little motion". Keep the fingers close to the keys and let the alternation be even and light. If it sounds lumpy, practise it in a slow, steady rhythm with a metronome, then let it relax.
Passing the line between the hands
In the A section the left hand plays the first notes of each broken chord and the right hand continues it upwards. Beginners often leave a gap between the hands. Practise just those few notes, the left-hand group and the first right-hand note, until you can't hear where one hand stops and the other starts.
The left-hand broken chords
In the original, the left hand stretches an octave from low A to the A above, and from low E to the E above and on to G♯. Don't hold your hand stretched; let it open for the notes and relax between groups. If an octave is too wide for your hand, play the lowest note and move, rather than straining.
The repeated A in the C section
For many bars the left hand plays the same low A in quick notes. It's tiring if your wrist is stiff. Keep it loose, play from the fingers with a small bounce, and keep the volume down: it's a background rumble, not a drum.
The pedal
The A section sounds best with the sustain pedal held through each left-hand broken chord and the right-hand notes that follow, then released when the harmony changes, usually as the E–D♯ figure starts again. Too much pedal blurs the E–D♯ into a smudge. Learn the notes without pedal first, then add it. Unit 8 of the lessons, Expression, introduces the pedal if you haven't used it.
From the easy version to the original
The step from level 1 to level 3 is big, but the melody of the A section is the same, so you're not starting from scratch. A good path: the beginner version until it's clean at full speed, then a few easy pieces with wider left-hand broken chords (Burgmüller's La Candeur is a good one), then the original A section, then the rest. In PianoKite, every bar is scored for each hand, so in the full piece you can see which sections are learned and which still need work.
Looking for more pieces like this? See the easy classical pieces for beginners or the intermediate (level 3) pieces.