# Beethoven and The Große Fuge Op. 133



## beetzart (Dec 30, 2009)

I try and listen every so often to remind myself of certain things. How can someone living in such a foul hell create such beauty? It seems to transcend all of art. After that I have no more that the English language will allow me to say on the matter.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Grosse Fugue has an effect on me different from any other classical work. I have always preferred the Otto Klemperer orchestrated version which is particularly powerful. No matter which version one listens to, it is a work that messes with your mind. The ending is magical and one of the great resolutions of what is, at times, a sort of logical dissonance.


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## chill782002 (Jan 12, 2017)

It's quite ironic that contemporary audiences had no idea of what to make of it and Beethoven had to write another movement to replace it.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Who do you think plays the whole quartet 1330/133 the best? I really mean, who makes the thing cohere when the fugue follows the cavatina? 

Do you think that the fugue has to be tempestuous? Does anyone play it in a poised way? It does seem really interesting to put very aggressive music straight after the cavatina -- I wonder why he did that. 

By the way, there's a very nice recording of the fugue as a stand alone piece by the Arditti Quartet, on a CD called 4.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Mandryka said:


> Who do you think plays the whole quartet 1330/133 the best? I really mean, who makes the thing cohere when the fugue follows the cavatina?


Just a personal opinion, I like the Fitzwilliam Quartet. Unlike the Berg Quartet, who take it at breakneck speed, which is amazing, the Fitzwilliams play it at a tempo which is slower, which can initially be off-putting, but if you are paying attention, you find out that you can pick up on subtle details, like that wonderful passage (starting at 4:35) where all four instruments are playing different rhythms at the same time.

As to why the fugue follows the cavatina, Basil Lam writes, "In a work where extreme contrasts in every element of composition are to be resolved in a finale of unprecedented size, a deeply-felt slow movement is necessary if the resolution of conflicts is to be adequately motivated."


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

I'm very fond of that Fitzwilliam recording, it may well be my favourite op 130/133 too. The fugue is played with more nobility than I can remember hearing elsewhere, and there's no loss of power. I like their op 132 too, I think it's a shame they didn't record op 131 or op 135, or indeed op 127

I don't really understand Basil Lam's idea though.

I wonder if ABQ take it fast because they were influenced by Walter Levin, I haven't heard them play it as far as I recall.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Tremendous performance by Klemperer! I much prefer the orchestra arrangement to the string quartet. Too often the string quartet version ends up with the players sawing away, grating away unrelentingly, scratching harshly away for measure after measure where it becomes tedious to hear just in the way it’s being performed. 

Grosse Fuge reminds me of one of the few times in which the music seems to be controlling Beethoven rather than the other way around. It seems to obsessively border on the boundary line between sanity and insanity in an unrelenting way, almost as if Beethoven was testing himself to see how much he could stand. Sometimes it can even sound as if there was something unhealthy about it. Had Beethoven not been deaf, I question whether he would have ever felt the need to write something as grotesque (IMO) and as obsessive at all. But of course the answer to that will forever be blowing in the wind like wherever this unfathomable Grosse Fuge may have come from to begin with.


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## Ziggabea (Apr 5, 2017)

chill782002 said:


> It's quite ironic that *contemporary audiences had no idea of what to make of it* and Beethoven had to write another movement to replace it.


Since when?

15 characters...


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

I have always had a fondness for the Quartetto Italiano's ca. 1970 recording on Philips -- which includes both finales on Side B so you can choose your poison.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

More on the background and controversy during Beethoven's lifetime regarding the Grosse Fuge, including on his mystified & confused public... the reasons why it was replaced in his string quartet:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Große_Fuge


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

In the realm of a curiosity: Grosse Fugue was also composed for 4-hands piano as op. 134. Not my cup of tea, but still of some interest.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

The Op. 134 is a "composer approved" version of the Grosse Fuge. It's Beethoven's own arrangement, since he was dissatisfied with one commissioned by the publisher. The performance in the Brilliant complete Beethoven box is the best I've heard. The rediscovery of Op. 134's manuscript in 2005, after being lost for 115 years, was big news.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

KenOC said:


> The Op. 134 is a "composer approved" version of the Grosse Fuge. It's Beethoven's own arrangement, since he was dissatisfied with one commissioned by the publisher. The performance in the Brilliant complete Beethoven box is the best I've heard. The rediscovery of Op. 134's manuscript in 2005, after being lost for 115 years, was big news.


I'd like to hear the one the publisher commissioned to hear what Beethoven reacted against.


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## MusicSybarite (Aug 17, 2017)

The Grosse Fuge always gives me goosebumps. One of the most dramatic fugues ever composed. That sound canvas makes my spirit to vibrate. A favorite recording is that by the Amadeus Quartet (DG). They nail the work! I definitely prefer the original string quartet version because it's more intense and clearer.


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## JeffD (May 8, 2017)

I have two recordings I like very much, the Guarneri Quartet, and recently I acquired the Takács Quartet.


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