Grosse Fugue

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At the end of this "Overtura," the first violins spell out the theme, followed by a pause and the beginning of the fugue proper. A thorny, agitated countertheme plays against the theme throughout the first section. Forceful accents and unrelenting rhythmic propulsion contribute to the music's thorny, aggressive character. Notice how Beethoven uses rhythmic as well as thematic counterpoint playing units of two against three.

The atmosphere changes dramatically with a shift to a new key and tempo, along with subdued volume, though the fugue theme winds its way into the flowing lyricism of this section. Another stark change initiates a scherzo-ish treatment of the theme, which now skips and trills with animated energy.

Beethoven, Grosse Fuge

The Grosse Fuge has inspired a vast range of analytical interpretations, including a reading of its design as a sequence of variations or a four-movement-work-in-one akin to the Ninth Symphony's colossal final movement , with the most complex writing reserved for the ensuing "finale" section. Beethoven reworks all of the preceding material, atomizing it, fusing it, refragmenting it, halting without warning, recharging the musical momentum.

At last a unison statement of the theme provides the breakthrough for the coda, and Beethoven rounds off the whole kaleidoscopic experience with a "back-to-normal" cadence-as if to remind us that "we are such stuff as dreams are made on Fortas Chamber Music Concerts: Search Search Gift Shop cart Cart. Log In Log In. Experience the Digital Stage. Give Now Help us continue to provide the outstanding performances you've come to expect! Gift Shop Shop Now. Back Plan Your Trip. Board of Directors National Trustees. In the notes to his Nonesuch recording with Ursula Oppens, Paul Jacobs observed that Beethoven's rendering was indigenous to the piano and extended the range both upward in the treble and downward in the bass, yet the result remained so complex as to be unmanageable on a single keyboard, so Jacobs and Oppens each played separate pianos.

In any event, while the content may all be there, the piano reduction falls far short of the string original in presenting the sustained notes, differentiating the textures and conveying the gripping sense of tense exertion.

With each part played by massed strings, and their depth anchored by the addition of double basses, the sheer volume of sound is clearly enhanced. Mason asserted that the Grosse Fuge is too strong for the intimate sincerity of chamber music and that it became intelligible and expressive when enlarged for string orchestra. Yet, no matter how cleanly the players articulate, the sheer visceral impact of the original inevitably is smoothed over and compromised.

This is apparent from the very outset with the transcription of the overture.

Große Fuge - Wikipedia

As already noted, the overture functions not only to introduce the variants of the theme that Beethoven will exploit throughout, but so much more — the full realms of dynamics, textures and accents, none of which a full complement of strings can convey anywhere near as effectively as a quartet. Above all else, even beyond these specific qualities, the most severe loss is the sheer sense of struggle generated by individuals straining to project ideas beyond the ordinary realm of a mere four players.

While Beethoven's conception may have been universal, he tailored his late work to take full advantage of the capacities — and, equally important, the limitations — of a string quartet. As the unidentified commentator to the Aeolian Quartet LP box noted, "Beethoven seems to be striving after some almost unplayable, almost unattainable, almost metaphysical end. Among recordings of the string orchestra version, the first, by the Busch Chamber Players in Columbia 78s; Biddulph CD , negotiates the gap between the astringency of the original and the heft of the adaptation by paring forces to what sounds like only a few players per part.

After a somewhat drowsy start, the young musicians cohere with hair-trigger precision. Yet, although most performances startle with the harsh impact of the first fugue after which the rest can seem wearying , the Busch players build toward and then away from the central section which emerges with uncommon speed and intensity, abetted by a somewhat strident recording. Subsequent fleshed-out versions can be divided into those adhering to chamber proportions and those going all the way with a full orchestral string section.

On the other hand, the Winograd String Orchestra , named for and led by cellist Arthur Winograd , a founder of the Juilliard Quartet which included the Grosse Fuge in its first public concert MGM LP, s , also achieves remarkable unity, but in a far more exciting way.

Their constant drive creates an inevitability that pulls us along to bridge the many gaps in the continuity of the score and suggests more of a youthful adventure of discovery than autumnal rumination. Diverse interpretive approaches are also taken in two of the most renown full orchestral recordings. Klemperer also relieves any sense of oppressive massed sound by clarifying the texture in a way that boasts historical validity.

Throughout the work, Beethoven took great pains to mischievously divide the lead role between the two violins, rather than relegate the second seat player to its traditional role of being a second fiddle, so to speak. By separating his first and second violins to the left and right of the podium and hence of the recorded stereo soundstage , Klemperer creates an effective aural analog to the visual clues of seeing a quartet in performance, as Beethoven surely intended.

While the stereo "ping pong" effect of trills and other phrases careening back and forth between the two violin parts belies a concert-hall experience, it serves as a brilliant and highly effective means of restoring the wonder of Beethoven's scoring, which too often is lost by the standard orchestral seating and in all monaural recordings in which the two violin parts can barely be distinguished.

In that regard, let's recall how upset Beethoven was at the Halm piano transcription for failing to sufficiently differentiate the original parts. Even the diffuse coda manages to hang together and make intellectual and emotional sense, in large part due to the careful preparation and weighting of each part, and the very end manages to emerge as a convincing conclusion, as it gathers cumulative strength to culminate in a persuasive note of catharsis.

But when all is said and done, whether heard alone or in the context of the full Op. Winter and Martin uphold the aptness of the format as an ideal confluence of two crucial factors — it exploits the intimacy of the most expressive family of instruments and comprises the number of voices needed for a four-voice chord, which they consider the richest texture that the ear can easily follow. Winter further notes that Beethoven was a passable violinist and thus understood the idiomatic characteristics of the string family. In a sense, we've become spoiled by the extraordinary rise in the quality of string quartet playing since Beethoven's time, Yet the high degree of polish and effortless clearance of technical hurdles in so many modern recordings defeats the sheer rough edginess that Beethoven built into the piece and that he must have assumed would be an inherent part of any performance.

So despite the clarity and sonic pleasure that smooth, note-perfect recordings afford, I generally dismiss them as falsifying the composer's intentions and violating the idiomatic essence of the Grosse Fuge.

Many recordings of the original version are appended to cycles of the complete Beethoven quartets or to sets of the late ones. While this tends to limit the choices for collectors on a budget who seek only the Grosse Fuge , it serves to place the work in appropriate context as the culmination of Beethoven's development of the genre throughout the key stages of his incomparable career.

About the Work

Even so, the sheer audacity of their pioneering effort, enhanced by fine balance and precision, transcends mere historical curiosity and, aside from some mild portamento heralds a rather modern approach well ahead of its time. A relic of the technology remains in their slowing down to prepare for the end of each side, a practice that made eminent sense when records had to be changed every four minutes but which adds an inappropriate sense of discontinuity nowadays.

Past Performances

Curiously, HMV "solved" the problem of which finale to use by issuing the Op. Despite the name, the Budapest members were all Russians educated in Germany, who became famed for their Beethoven quartet performances including 60 complete cycles. As the resident quartet at the Library of Congress for 22 years, they played the Library's fabulous set of Stradivarius instruments, with which they recorded two complete cycles on mono and stereo LPs and a partial one on 78s for Columbia now all on Sony CDs , to which can be added a live Library of Congress performance on Bridge CDs that rises to greater heights of visceral excitement.

All are fundamentally similar and sound considerably more controlled than the Gramophone review would suggest. Yet they all contain a striking effect of letting the musicians' individuality occasionally disrupt the overall cohesion just enough to add an exciting edge to a fundamentally intellectualized reading, thus projecting a highly appropriate aura of hard, exploratory work that leaves significant things unsaid. Among the many modern recordings of the Grosse Fuge , only a relative few are available separately, often suitably paired with the B-flat Major Quartet, Op.

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Many others are included in integral sets of all 16 Beethoven quartets, or boxes of the late five, but out of deference to readers' and my budgets, I'm only addressing those currently available on individual CDs. Among the single discs, my favorites are the hair-raising precision and passion of the Cleveland Quartet abetted by Telarc's finely detailed recording, , the brash, quick vitality of the Orford Quartet Delos, , also benefiting from a crystalline recording , the swift and breathtaking passsion of the Yale Quartet Vanguard, c.

All of these transcend mere virtuosity abundant though it is and surface polish to not only reveal, but underline, the sheer sense of rough-hewn struggle inherent in this hugely challenging work. Even so, no single recording can fully capture the strange compelling power of this work that, by its very nature, is so intensely fruitful and profoundly complex as to defy revealing all of its riches through a sole performance.

In this phenomenally bold and brilliant gesture, Beethoven not only reached far beyond the capacities of critics, performers and audiences of his time, but so much further — he pushed the outer limits of human musical understanding. Every composer mostly toiling in obscurity who dares to craft work of awesome personal significance, but without any concern with pleasing others, has followed in Beethoven's hallowed footsteps.

The Joy and Pain in Beethoven's Big Fugue

The most intriguing source of information about all things Beethoven is the massive biography begun by Alexander Wheelock Thayer. At the time of his death in , he had devoted a half-century to his research but the volumes he was able to issue covered Beethoven's life only up to His work was continued by Hermann Dieters and then, following Deiters's death in , completed by Hugo Reimann.

Either version is warm, thorough and full of insight into the humanity of the great creator. Among specialized books that focus on the quartets are Joseph Kerman: Chamber Music Penguin, Beethoven's Grosse Fuge demands attention as the most advanced work of our greatest composer.

In this article, we review the development of the fugue as a musical genre, place the Grosse Fuge in the context of Beethoven's late quartets to which he devoted his final years, examine its remarkable structure , consider its early performances , and then survey the often-heard full string orchestral adaptations and quartet recordings. PDF scanned by www. Naxos Javascript not enabled. Creative Commons Attribution 3. Creative Commons Attribution 4. Retrieved from " http: Double fugues ; Fugues ; For 2 violins, viola, cello ; Scores featuring the violin ; Scores featuring the viola ; Scores featuring the cello ; For 4 players ; For strings arr ; For strings ; Scores featuring string ensemble ; For piano 4 hands arr ; Scores featuring the piano ; Scores featuring the piano 4 hands ; For 2 players ; For piano arr ; For 1 player.

Contents 1 Performances 1.

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