D or E, that is the Question

A deformed photo (©︎ FAE) of 田淵紗恵子/Saeko Tabuchi‘s „Für Elise“ for piano four hands (2018)

Today I would love to recommend the most wonderous, most amazing and wittiest paraphrase ever written on Ludwig van Beethoven’s „Für Elise“ in the style of Latin American music - for piano 4 hands (or 6 hands) - by Saeko Tabuchi, Japanese pianist, composer, arranger.

When I secretly invited Saeko to my concert in 2018 to perform this 4-hands paraphrase together, we managed it as a complete surprise. After I finished my solos by Schumann, Liszt and Chopin, I announced "Für Elise" as a kind of new composition. So I played the opening, just as Beethoven composed it, obediently to the point where the semitones e - d♯- e - d♯repeated several times. At that moment she rushed over to my piano, which, in fact, could have been a bit of horror of the audience (something like: a madwoman is coming up!), wwww, so we played our socks off, enjoying the completely freshly woken Latin American Beethoven!

Here you can purchase the scores for:
Four hands version
https://www.musse.jp/scores/19503

Six hands version
https://tabco.thebase.in/items/22187553

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Now when it comes to „Für Elise“ WoO 59 of all things, we cannot leave one ambiguity unanswered.

To play d or e ? - that is the longstanding question - namely in measure 7, right hand.

Beethoven‘s draft of „Für Elise“ - bar 7 | photo: henle.de

​Beethoven’s final manuscript is missing today, but an autograph draft still exists! So, behold, the correct note would definitely be d, which forms here an expressive and more logical dominant seventh chord.

Most of today's new editions, including Henle or Wiener Urtext, which we can safely trust, have d there, but many pianists still play the unintelligible e.
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Sometimes in the sleepless nights, like right now on the day of Beethoven's death, it suddenly becomes fascinating to research the so-called genealogical teacher-student trees. Most of us would have multiple trees that occasionally surprise us with some unexpected names from the past. Precisely, the names you only saw in the encyclopaedias.

Two of my teacher-pupil genealogical trees lead me back to Ludwig van Beethoven. Of course I am in the know that this hardly means anything. Such a tree connection does not directly influence me, let alone my aptitude and ability, if I had any of them at all. Still, it makes me a certain belief that I may also belong to the myriad cells in the living history of music.

<1>
​Ludwig van Beethoven
↑
Carl Czerny
↑
Franz Liszt
↑
István Thomán
↑
Ernst von Dohnányi
↑
Max Trapp
↑
Saburo Moroi
↑
Masaru Kawasaki
↑
Suguru Ito
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<2>
Ludwig van Beethoven
↑
Carl Czerny
↑
Theodor Leschetizky
↑
Anna Hirzel-Langenhan
↑
Hans Leygraf
↑
Erika Haase
↑
Andreas Staier
↑
Suguru Ito
​