bagatelle
A short, light piano piece, often of modest technical demands
In Depth
The French word bagatelle means a trifle, and the genre typically presents small musical ideas in miniature form. Beethoven elevated the bagatelle beyond its humble origins: his late Bagatelles, Op. 126, are profound miniatures that distil the wisdom of his final period into tiny frames. The genre anticipates the 20th-century taste for brevity seen in Webern's aphoristic pieces. Bartók and Ligeti also contributed important sets of bagatelles.
Beethoven's Bagatelle in A minor, WoO 59, is better known as Für Elise — arguably the most famous bagatelle ever written.