Anyone who practiced piano for four or five years has played Beethoven’s bagatelle “Für Elise.” I know I did.

And anyone of only modest talent who played “Für Elise” struggled with the hairy middle section. I, of only modest talent, certainly did.

Rats like it – sort of.

Except when high on cocaine.

That’s from an article in mid-May by the London-based website Classicfm.com. The headline: “Controversial study shows rats prefer jazz to classical music, when on drugs.”

For the study, scientists built “an apparatus” that permitted rats to choose their instrumental music.

A jukebox for rats?

A playlist for the whiskered set?

The study subjects preferred silence to any music, according to the Albany Medical College researchers.

But if forced to listen, rats chose classical, represented by “Für Elise.” Unless given cocaine, when they favored the Miles Davis jazz standard “Four.”

Critics accused those behind the study of harming the rats. Researchers said the study was aimed at helping humans who suffer from addiction.

A big question remains: What would Beethoven (who died in 1827) and Davis (in 1991) say?