[Harp-Pedal] Für Elise – The One Classical Piece my Mom could Play

My mother could play ONE classical piece on piano – Beethoven’s “Für Elise.”  I didn’t know it at the time, but when I hear that piece today I realize how much influence it had on me as a composer, just in terms of the way it’s structured, the particular things he did – especially the dramatic ‘pedal tone’ with the changing chords over it.

These are things I can see and hear in my own writing today and I realize I heard this piece as a child, not only as great music, lasting melody, the play of harmony and lyricism — but as an early lesson in how music gets put together.

I always wanted to play it on harp …. but there was that tricky chromatic section … not only is it completely non-harpistic – but it’s the one part that bothered me in the original – almost like he meant to write something different but didn’t get around to it.

So – forgive me Ludwig and all you musical purists ... but I simply changed that section – and that made it fun and easy to play instead of a technical struggle.

Once I figured it out, I committed to making an arrangement that would be accessible to pedal harp players at an intermediate level – and voilá, now YOU can play it too! (if you play pedal harp) And I hope you will!

If you like the way I played it here, great.  If you don’t – YAY – because I’d love to hear the way you play my arrangement!  The download link is below, and once you learn it, please share it on YouTube and then share the link to YOUR YouTube video of it in the comments below!