Beethoven
was born in this house at 515 Bonngasse, Bonn on December 17, 1770.
Fur Elise
is probably the all time hymn to un-rewarded love. When Ludwig gave the
song to Elise, she said "it sounds like a funeral song". As
with most romantics, the image of the woman Ludwig loved in his heart,
was not matched by the "real" woman he platonically loved.
Fur Elise is
a Bagatelle, which is a short light-hearted piece of music, so, over dramatizing
its performance is not what Beethoven had in mind although, being the sentimental
person he was, he would probably stretch the style to Ba-a-a-gatelle according
to his mood. This is probably the best known piece of music in the world
which means that if you play it live, your audience will go "a-ha". The
general public loves to hear familiar tunes and most professional musicians
ignore this basic truth. This partially explains why most people are
intimidated by the word "classical" preceding the word music. Performers
usually do a great job at making the audience feel ignorant. The people
you play for is king. Save those "sophisticated" pieces for those
few geeks out there and aim at delighting your audience.
I
arranged Fur Elise for guitar according to my personal taste and my knowledge
of the instrument. If you have any objections, you can always go to the
original score (left) and see if you can do better...joke. A big effort
is being made by composers all over to get the guitar repertoire to a level
where it is not dwarfed by the piano or violin repertoire. Though the effort
is a valid one, it is also true that no matter what we do, we will never
be able to say that Bach, Beethoven or Mozart composed for it. Andres Segovia
went the extra mile asking the Mexican composer Ponce to write a suite
and credit it to Leopold Weiss. I simply think we are lucky enough that
the guitar can recreate most music without losing the spirit that brought
it to life... actually, most times the opposite is true.
I will be uploading 1 staff per day with the fingering that best suites me and the technical thinking behind it.
This is a piano piece and I recommend you hear a piano version first so as to catch Beethoven's spirit and decide wisely. Romantic composers were much more attached to the instrument they composed for than baroque composers. Still, I think that your knowledge of the guitar can overcome any challenge . I often say that if Beethoven played the guitar he would have still composed most of his music and probably would have not become deaf.
Guitar Glossary needed in Fur Elise:
6a in Re Tune string 6 to D
string
number
1 2 3 4 left hand fingers (1 index, 2 meddle, 3 ring, 4 little)
i m a p right hand finger (i index, m middle, a ring, p thumb)
do
not lift the finger (you'll probably need it again soon)
] repeat
part
A
roman numeral under an inverted L indicates position
Parts marked
with the roman numerals I, II and III are repeated constantly during the
piece, so I'll simply refer to them as I, II and III.
I use string
2 at the beginning because I like the sound of this string on my Contreras.
Try string 1 if you prefer. Hold the F in bar 5 until the D and then, "fly"
to the A. Dragging the fingers on the nylon strings is ok because they
produce no undesired noise. The slurs are optional as long as the accents
and fluidity of the music are achieved without them.
In the preceding
bar, where it says "use the base of finger 1" refer to the image here
.
String 2 is ideal for the start although
on some instruments string 1 is just fine. See the sequence of notes as
phrases.
Breath belongs there because a new phrase is about to begin.
This is an almost identical
repetition of the first staff. It changes towards the end to present theme
3 (phrase 3).
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