As anyone living with budding musicians can relate, when someone falls in love with a piece of music, they’re not shy of sharing.

Jules from Facebook remembers playing Beethoven’s Für Elise as a young child which “drove my family mad.”

“Something about the complexity and the changing rhythms and textures resonated with me,” she shares.

Jules was responding to our question on social media: what was the first piece of classical music you loved to play?

Many named music by German composer Ludwig van Beethoven, who was born over 250 years ago. Specifically, a piece for the piano famously nicknamed Für Elise. 

If you didn't learn it yourself, or had to listen to someone else learning it, you might recognise the tune from the film Rosemary's Baby or Australian classic, The Man From Snowy River. 

There’s a good reason why many people love to play this music.

“People know Für Elise, even if they don't know classical music,” explains ABC Classic’s Mornings presenter Russell Torrance.

In Taiwan, the tune is even used to announce garbage trucks.

Torrance remembers playing the music when he was little.

“We had a book of easy piano pieces that my gran gave us for Christmas and Für Elise was in there,” he says.

As a youngster, Torrance easily mastered the piece, and many audience members shared similar experiences on social media.

Anne learnt to play Für Elise as a nine-year-old, while Alexander memorised the piece, outsmarting a teacher who “threatened to take [the music] off me.”

Australian pianist Tamara-Anna Cislowska, who presents Duet on ABC Classic, explains how Beethoven hooks people’s attention through the first few bars of his music. 

In Für Elise, the composer uses a two-notes motif which Cislowska describes as “the greatest earworm in music and the most famous trill.”

Janet says “It’s the only piece I can still play from memory”. 

The identity of Elise is one of classical music’s most enduring mysteries. 

The dedication suggests she was someone Beethoven adored, but we don’t actually know who Elise was. 

One theory suggests that Beethoven wrote the tune for a woman called Therese Malfatti, who was a friend and student of Beethoven's. 

Other theories point to soprano Elisabeth Röckel or piano prodigy Elise Barensfeld, but we still don't know who Elise actually was.

Despite being the front-man for a period of music called the Romantic movement, Beethoven “found it hard to hold down relationships,” Torrance says.

Cislowska believes that Für Elise has a timeless quality and shared that the late Australian pianist Geoffrey Tozer would play it as an encore in his concerts.

Other celebrated pianists also hold Für Elise in high regard. In 2019, superstar pianist Lang Lang released an album to inspire students with music including Für Elise, Bach’s Minuet in G Major and an arrangement of Eliza Aria by Australian composer Elena Kats-Chernin.

The music that evoked the inspiration to play an instrument featured many well-loved pieces. Another Beethoven classic featured heavily for pianists, the Moonlight Sonata. 

For other instrumentalists music included a simplified version of Handel’s Largo from Xerxes, Pachelbel’s Cannon in D, Mozart’s Twinkle Twinkle Little Star  and “A beginner’s arrangement of [Paganini/Listz’s] La Campanella.”

One thing was very clear; the memory of playing can last a lifetime, especially when shared with loved ones.