Fur Elise

Simple Classical Tunes for the Banjo

by Gerald Jones

In the February 2008 issue of Banjo Sessions® I included my melodic style banjo arrangement of "Bach's Minuet in G". In keeping this vein is Beethoven's "Fur Elise".

Sometime called the Bagatelle in A minor, Fur Elise means For Elise in German. No one is certain who Elise was. There's a theory that Beethoven originally entitled his work Fur Therese, Therese being Therese Malfatti von Rohrenbach zu Dezza whom Beethoven intended to marry. She turned down Beethoven's proposal. In 1816 Therese, who was the daughter of the Viennese merchant Jacob Malfatti von Rohrenbach married an Austrian nobleman and state official Wilhelm von Drobdik. When the work was published in 1865, the discoverer of the piece Ludwig Nohl mis-transcribed the title as "Fur Elise". The original manuscript was lost so there is no way to verify the exact title.

I transposed the piece to Dm to take advantage of the low D string. The tuning is aDGBD with the 5th string capoed to an A note. The arrangement should present no great technical challenges. It is not a fast piece and should be played rubato and with emotion. In other words "Put the smaltz to it..." The hardest part for me is the single string work in the B section. In any case it is such a familiar and nice tune that even played badly it will please your non banjo playing friends...

Enjoy!
Gerald Jones

Fur Elise
Download the mp3:
FurElise.mp3

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