Piano World Home Page Forums Fun Stuff! - Parties, Tours, Projects & More... Just For The Fun of It fur elise: love/hate?

Hey it's one of the few classical pieces I still sort of remember from before I started writing my own stuff and playing Top 40...

As classical goes it is one of the few pieces I can still stand and play once in a while... :p

~Trev

I've read through the piece, but never cared to learn it. I don't care for it, not only because it's overplayed, but just because I don't like it.

In fact, I don't particularly care for Beethoven

Is that sacrilege in these parts?

I'm 14.
I love playing Fur Elise. I have to disagree with those who claim it's easy. Sections B and C are difficult when played correctly.
Sometimes I hear other kids play Fur Elise, and they ruin the piece. They put no emotion into their playing. They play like robots. Playing without dynamics they sound like a monotone voice. When played right, I think it is ONE of the most beautiful pieces Beethoven wrote.

Must suck to be a piano sales person with all the lookie loos.

Yes, overplayed. But it is overplayed and over-assigned to beginning and intermediate piano students the way that Emily Dickinson's poems are regularly anthologized for children, and one completely misses the power of her lines. I've played it and my son is now learning it -- which, I admit, is trying. What I keep in the back of my head is hearing Ivo Pogorelich, about 25 years ago, opening a San Francisco recital with Fur Elise. In the hands of a great pianist, it almost sounded like a different piece. What I find absolutely unbearable are the simplified versions (or the simplified versions of the so-called Moonlight sonata -- even worse!). Still, if either brings the beginner to a love of Beethoven, I suppose that's all for the good.

I have a list of "DO NOT TEACH" pieces in my studio. One of them is Fur Elise. I refuse to teach it even when my students beg for it. A few others are: Mozart Alla Turca, and Bach Minuet in G major. Totally overplayed, hacked, and played in every "interpretation" possible.

BTW I like this piece, no matter how many times I've heard it.

So there!

It is overplayed BADLY. but if it played nicely it is a very nice piece.

I learned it because when you are nine that is the epic song to be able to play.....

dont love... dont hate....like on ocassion

i like it, enjoyed learning it

I like it when played correctly and doesnt sound like a robot on a casio

fur elise is beautiful.

The problem isnt with the piece is that most beginner music sounds like crap.

I wish beethovan had written an entire series of beginner pieces, how wonderful would that have been. You know, like those beautiful cello etudes by bach, the six suites for the unaccompanied cello.

The striking thing about fur elise is not that it is overplayed, but that great composers have absolutely fallen down in their duty to write simple but beautiful music.

Know this interpretation?:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXPAAI3Q9wA

It seems that Chopin is the only composer exempt from anything even remotely critical on these forums.

It depends on who's playing it. I can't stand playing it myself though

Played sensitively, it is great (maybe not quite the way Beet would have done it himself).

I think it's a beautiful piece, when played correctly with changes in the dynamics. Parts of it are easy but there are a couple of areas that require a little bit of work. Listening to it over and over being played by students I would have to say would bother me quite a bit.

Five children. Two sisters. One piano. Two ears. All those notes repeating themselves and repeating themselves and repeating themselves and repeating themselves and repeating themselves and repeating themselves

I only like the 'hard' parts of this piece. the di de di di di di di da I can do without. It gets repeated in the piece too often and is annoying.

In fact I can do without all the things that people play who don't play the piano.

It's always either the very first section of fur elise (no left hand)

The intro to chopsticks.

Rolling their knuckles on the black keys; btw does any one know what this is called? Or if it even has a name.

Or they play either the bass section or the treble section of heart and soul.

I love it if played well with expression. If played at the same volume continuously with no expression put into it, then it can be very tedious. Unfortunately many pianist are taught to play it fairly early in their development and they don't play it with the required expression and nuance required to make it musical.

Love or Hate ?? I havent read all the posts but I cant imagine anyone who plays piano actually hating it! youd have to feel particulary strongly about it to hate it lol

plus despite how popular it is and how over played it is etc etc dont we all have a somewhat fond memory of the first time we heard it ? I wouldnt be surprised, given how ubiquitous it is, if it wasnt for most people their first introduction to not only the sound of a piano but indeed classical music in general.

for that reason alone I have to love it