Ludwig van beethoven biography für elise

27 November 2018, 16:55 | Updated: 28 November 2018, 13:53

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.

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