The title says it really.

I'd love to play this piece and have downloaded a copy from IMPSL or some such place and wondered what grade (ish) you need to be to play it all properly.

Was sight reading the beginning ok slowly.... but then it began to look tricky so I left it tonight as tired.

Will I be able to do it all??

Thanks.

This is always a point of contention, but I would say around grade 4 to do a decent job.

I've been able to play the first bit for quite some time, but gave up where it changes from the initial theme I'll revisit it at a later date I think. I'd rather play it properly than destroy it with my poor technique

I have it in a grade 4 book (from 32 years ago I've just noticed!)

Thankyou should come with practice then!!!

Night

A few concert pianists have done a reasonable job of it. The rest of us do our best!

It is far from being a simple beginner's piece as so many of the uninitiated think it is. But the most important thing is that you like it and want to play it, so I'd say go for it, whatever your standard.

There's playing it, and there's performing it. Here's one of the best versions I've ever heard - enjoy!

Go for it, Dawn! It’s an excellent piece to have in your repertoire from an early stage, and it just gets better and better, as you progress upward. It doesn’t matter how many times I play it, I always find something I can improve. It always seems fresh and I never tire of it.

Mole

Good luck on this Dawn . Probably stretching it a bit with the "grade 4" tag, as to play it really well, i would recommend a grade 5-6 pass, to leave "Room" tro play the piece comfortably, but if you "stick at it" hard, then you may surpass yourself on this piece




I have some of my Grandads piano music from 1960(ish), and it seems (To me) pieces are getting easier nowadays per grade?, would you say?.

AllzWell.

Actually, I'm not so sure. Looking at the current Grade 2 pieces, I think they are rather hard. I have a student taking Grade 2 in a couple of weeks, and she is playing her pieces very well, but struggled with some of the earlier ones we looked at and decided to change. Obviously you play to your own strengths, but even so they did seem to me harder than previous years. However, I am only referring to the current century (!) since I don't have 1960s mucis to compare it with.

I've not actually taken any grades but my teacher reckons I'm grade 5+. She's had me working on grade 7 pieces but I'm finding them a struggle. Grade 4 pieces were the last ones I really felt I could "perform" as well as some of the grade 5 ones but some I found immensely difficult. I can "play" 1 or 2 of the grade 7 pieces but am nowhere near performing these.

For Elise sounds a realistic aim if grade 4. If as Mad Tom says it's higher then I guess I'll just have to do my best

On clarinet I've played a number of pieces around grade 4/5 level lately with a pianist to accompany me and I know that I do a far better job now than I did at grade 5 level. It's all to do with tone and dynamic expression. I guess the same will apply to piano....

Thanks for the encouragement all. Practise starts here then

I'm sure you will be able to 'play' it before long, let's have a close look at it on Tuesday.

Thankyou

Not what I meant at all. Pieces do not have grades! It is serious work to play even the simplest pieces well, and every time you improve as a pianist you also become aware of all kinds of problems and difficulties that you never knew knew existed.

The problem with Fur Elise is that it has suffered from being played extremely badly for decades, if not centuries! Typically the opening section is played with an uneven tempo, often with the right foot firmly to the floor, then as soon as the first episode starts the tempo halves. The pedal point later on is hammered, while the chords above it are bashed out shapelessly, and the triplet figures that follow are either laboured over, or rushed through madly. I don't blame the poor inexperienced pianists - but what on earth were their so-called "teachers" doing to allow it?? Poor Beethoven.

My point was that it is a revelation (and relief) to hear it played by a good concert pianist, like say Brendel, on his recording of all the Bagatelles.

I am sure you'll do your best to approach the second category, and stay well clear of the first.

Thankyou for clarifying Mad Tom and no of course pieces do not have grades but in the absence of any other arbitrary measure by which to guage my standard I guess what I was really asking is what grade level would one have to be in order to make a reasonable effort of playing Fur Elise. I do not wish to be one of the former as mad Tom describes but cannot promise to be one of the latter just yet
I guess I wanted to know if it would be a reasonable ask for someone of my level to even attempt it or if I'd be setting myself up for a great fall...

... I feel I've done a lot of falling lately

Just got round to giving this a listen and WOW!!!! is all I can say. She's a great pianist!

Like I said ...

and I hope you enjoy learning it.

It has also suffered from being reproduced in part in a number of 'easy to play' books, minus its more demanding middle section, as many of us will be aware.

I had a pre-grade one student learn the first page or so (from P Hall's Piano Time Classics) at the end of last year. He made a fairly good job of it, I have to say, and he certainly seemed to enjoy it. The following term he took grade one and got a good result. But the remainder of the piece is probably at least 'grade 4 level' if you want a label - I don't know if my student will at some point go back and learn the complete thing, or whether he is satisfied with having learnt a curtailed version of it.

Wow I love it. It hardly looks like she's playing rather stroking the keys.

Does the beautiful Valentina know that you are in love with her??

This is the only piece most French children have ever wanted to play and it has been literally cacophonied by generations of them. I am, every year, begged by beginners to teach them "La lettre à Elise." Frankly I have developed a heartly dislike of this hackneyed piece which for a long time was next on my "hackneyed hate list" to the Hallelujah chorus.

However, having listened to Valentina Lisitsa I am beginning to change my mind. That was mlusic - OK drawing room music, but music and very sensitive music at that.

I actually think it is way above Grade 4. It's like the CPE BAch Solfeggiettto. Almost anyone can learn the notes and very few people can actually play it. No harm in trying, of course but I doubt if it's the kind of piece that will stand the amount of practising needed unless one is way above the technical ability required. If one has to struggle to learn it rather than to interpret it I suspect it may well become very tedious.

She plays this amazingly too... WOW!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJR0WF_vVmU

I struggled with Fur Elise for quite a while before I started my Grade 5 pieces, and am ashamed to say I still can't play it at all well. It is very hard to play it properly - my fingers just don't work well enough at the moment, and I need to do more finger strengthening exercises. I may go back to it and have another go once my exam is out of the way.

The Solfeggietto is on the 2009-10 Grade 6 syllabus. I've tried it, but it's really hard... but I bought it in the ABRSM book (a collection of keyboard pieces, book 2, or something like that), and there are some other playable ones in there.