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Was Beethoven Deaf when he wrote Für Elise?

Ludwig van Beethoven was well into his career and almost completely deaf when he wrote his famous piano piece, Fur Elise, in 1810.

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Ludwig van Beethoven was well into his career and almost completely deaf when he wrote his famous piano piece, Fur Elise, in 1810. Though the title of the piece comes from a discovered manuscript signed by Beethoven and dedicated to Elise, that signed paper has since been lost - sparking an interest in learning who "Elise" could be. Fur Elise was not published until 1867, 40 years after Beethoven's 1827 death. It was discovered by Ludwig Nohl, and his interpretation of the title inadvertently led to more than a century of speculation about the true origin of this somber tune.

Identity of Elise

There are many theories about who "Elise" may have been; was she a real person, or was it just a term of endearment? There's also a theory that the person who unearthed the score after Beethoven's death misread the composer's handwriting, and that it really said "fur Therese." If it was dedicated to Therese, that's almost certainly a reference to Therese von Rohrenbach zu Dezza, a student and friend of Beethoven. The story goes that Beethoven sought her hand in marriage but Therese rejected him in favor of an Austrian nobleman. Another candidate for the role of Elise is Elisabeth Rockel, another female friend of Beethoven, whose nicknames were Betty and Elise. Or Elise could have been Elise Barensfeld, the daughter of a friend. The identity of Elise (if she was, in fact, a real person) has been lost to history, but scholars continue to study Beethoven's complicated life for clues as to who she was.

About the Music of Fur Elise

Fur Elise is generally considered a bagatelle, a term that translates literally as "a thing of little value." In musical terms, however, a bagatelle is a short piece. Despite its short length, Fur Elise is arguably as recognizable even to casual listeners of classical music, as Beethoven's Fifth and Ninth symphonies. However, there's also an argument that Fur Elise should be considered an Albumblatt, or album leaf. This term refers to a composition that is dedicated to a dear friend or acquaintance. Usually an Albumblatt was not intended for publication, but rather as a private gift to the recipient. Fur Elise can be basically broken down into five parts: A-B-A-C-A. It begins with the main theme, a simple somber melody played sweetly above arpeggiated chords (A), then briefly modulates to a major scale (B), then returns to the main theme (A), then ventures to a much more tumultuous and lengthier idea (C), before finally returning to the main theme. Beethoven only assigned opus numbers to his larger works, such as his symphonies. This small piano piece was never given an opus number, hence the WoO 59, which is German for "werk ohne opuszahl" or "work without opus number". It was assigned to the piece by Georg Kinsky in 1955.

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How many keys are on piano?

88 keys As piano music developed and evolved, the keyboard compass was gradually expanded in response to requests from composers who sought a broader potential for expression. By the 1890s, today's modern keyboard had become established with 88 keys spanning 7¼ octaves (from 2A to C5; 27.5 Hz to 4,186 Hz*).

The piano that Bartolomeo Cristofori first invented in Italy had only 54 keys. As piano music developed and evolved, the keyboard compass was gradually expanded in response to requests from composers who sought a broader potential for expression. By the 1890s, today's modern keyboard had become established with 88 keys spanning 7¼ octaves (from 2A to C5; 27.5 Hz to 4,186 Hz*). The human ear can hear sounds in the range from approximately 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz, but the upper limit of frequencies that the human brain can discriminate is at the very most around 4,000 Hz. Even if the compass were to be expanded by increasing the number of keys on the piano, to the human ear, the extra notes at the bass end would become nothing more than a rumbling noise, and the added treble notes would be heard as an unpleasant dissonant noise with no sense of being in a tonal range, and thus, musically, would be almost meaningless. Boesendorfer is making 97-key pianos with nine additional keys in the bass segment of the keyboard (2C to C5). However, the strings for these nine keys in the lowest bass segment are really only there to provide a richer sound when other keys are played by resonating with them. In reality, the extra keys themselves are almost never played directly. * When A is tuned to 440 Hz. The pitch of the individual keys will vary depending on the tuning method.

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