FUR ELISE

As a child prodigy in Bonn, Ludwig van Beethoven's great ambition had been to travel to Vienna to meet and take lessons with the man he knew was the greatest living composer, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

The opportunity came and he gained entry into Mozart's home and met his great idol. "Play something," he told Beethoven. He did, and when he has finished, Mozart walked into the adjoining room and told his friends, "stanzi, stanzi," pointing back into the music room, "watch out for that boy. One day he will give the world something to talk about."

Mozart was right, Beethoven became famous in his own right. One of the several piano pieces he composed, which is well-loved in the music world, is "Fur Elise." When Beethoven composed the piece around 1810, he described it as a little "bagatelle" and hastily scribbled a title on it. Now, however, music scholars believe that Beethoven's illegible title was really "Fur Therese," and the composition intended as a gift for Therese Malfatti, his physician's daughter.