# Grosse Fugue - What do you think?



## nefigah

Beethoven's infamous work, sure to incite quite the diverse range of opinions.

Where do you stand?


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## opus67

I don't get it. That's what I voted for. Having said that, I must also mention that I never listen to Op. 130 with the "requested" finale, nor do I listen to the fugue as a standalone work. Beethoven intended it to be the last movement, and that's how I will listen to the quartet.


P.S.: Oh, and please use Grosse Fuge (Große Fuge, if you want to really go with the German thing) or Great Fugue. Not a mixture of the two, please.


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## Mendelssohn

Throughout the years of classical music listening i've come to hate Beethoven...of course not of his music (all of it) but for his fans...they just think that music begins with and ends to Beethoven (at least some I've met).That led me for a long period indeed to stay away from his music (except from a couple of late sonatas for my piano studies)...

After that time,i re-connected to Beethoven after I bought his complete works by Brilliant...When i opened it and looked at the list in the inside,I found Grosse Fugue,a work of his that I've listened only in fragments in the movie "Copying Beethoven".So,it was the first CD that i listened from that collection...

I was, if I may say, shocked.I don't find any meaning in this work...Or it is such a clever and enlightened work that my mediocre ears don't catch it, or it has indeed no meaning.As it is a work of Beethoven,I suspect it is the first, but again...i don't know...

For me, it hardly has a melody, a lyrical line...Its orchestration (or as others prefer to say for this piece,instruments' movement) is quite weird for my tastes...And it is too heavy, overloaded both in music and "emotion".Those in favor of Beethoven and his Grosse Fugue, of course, suggest that it is an innovating work of art, that it opens a new era in music,that it is the first step to Romanticism (and especially late-Romantic ---see Scriabin),that...that...that...

The only thing I have to say for Grosse Fugue (and for that I may be criticized by other members of the forum) is that ,although a giant step for the science of music, it has much the same result as fitting wheels to a tomato...It doesn't make any sense...


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## jhar26

I sometimes wonder what exactly people mean by "I don't get" or "I do get" this piece of music or that composer. Can you "don't get" a piece but still like it? Can you "get it" but nevertheless hate it? Or if you like it, does it automatically mean that you are "getting it"? Stupid questions, maybe, but sometimes I wonder what exactly people mean by all this "getting" and "not getting" it.


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## World Violist

jhar26 said:


> I sometimes wonder what exactly people mean by "I don't get" or "I do get" this piece of music or that composer. Can you "don't get" a piece but still like it? Can you "get it" but nevertheless hate it? Or if you like it, does it automatically mean that you are "getting it"? Stupid questions, maybe, but sometimes I wonder what exactly people mean by all this "getting" and "not getting" it.


I think getting it can easily _lead_ to liking it but not necessarily. Anyway, my take on this piece is actually of some import to questions, I hope.

I don't get it, but I do think it's brilliant, if not really on my playlist. And I don't particularly "like" it, really, but I think it is still brilliant and it has its place.

So, to try to make my statement make somewhat more sense, I think it's great but I don't care for it.


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## opus67

jhar26 said:


> I sometimes wonder what exactly people mean by "I don't get" or "I do get" this piece of music or that composer. Can you "don't get" a piece but still like it? Can you "get it" but nevertheless hate it? Or if you like it, does it automatically mean that you are "getting it"? Stupid questions, maybe, but sometimes I wonder what exactly people mean by all this "getting" and "not getting" it.


Speaking for myself, when I say I don't get a piece of music, I don't understand the "musical" reasons behind it. I can not analyse it in terms of the musical structure, cannot follow the score and what not - and it bugs me a lot! (It's like reading a popular science article versus understanding a textbook.) That's actually true with every other work, not only of Beethoven's but of all composers; but in the case of Beethoven's Op. 130, he seems to fly from the seeds of Romanticism to the beginnings of Shostakovich and the twentieth century in an instant. It shocks even someone without a knowledge of music. I have not familiarised myself very well with his late piano sonatas, but I wonder if there's something at this level in any of his other works from the latter period of his life.

To answer your other questions,



> Can you "don't get" a piece but still like it?


Sure. It's true of every piece I like.



> Can you "get it" but nevertheless hate it?


I don't get it.

Sorry. 

I don't see that happening now.



> Or if you like it, does it automatically mean that you are "getting it"?


No.


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## Elgarian

jhar26 said:


> I sometimes wonder what exactly people mean by "I don't get" or "I do get" this piece of music or that composer. Can you "don't get" a piece but still like it? Can you "get it" but nevertheless hate it? Or if you like it, does it automatically mean that you are "getting it"? Stupid questions, maybe, but sometimes I wonder what exactly people mean by all this "getting" and "not getting" it.


'Getting' and 'not getting' seem, for me, to be related to a certain sense of alienation that arises from incomprehension; it's like listening to a conversation in a foreign language that I have no knowledge of at all. Late Beethoven fits that category. I neither like, nor dislike it; it's just 'sounds', going on, neither pleasant nor unpleasant (well, _mildly_ unpleasant, perhaps, with a slightly depressive air) to which my response is mere puzzlement.

I remember asking a friend to help me 'get' it, once; he rambled on about Beethoven being a great genius, and his later works being 'pure music'. All of which just puzzled me more. I'm perfectly happy to tick the 'genius' box on the basis of what others so obviously discover in works like this, but I have little hope of ever seeing it for myself.


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## jhar26

opus67 said:


> Speaking for myself, when I say I don't get a piece of music, I don't understand the "musical" reasons behind it. I can not analyse it in terms of the musical structure, cannot follow the score and what not - and it bugs me a lot! (It's like reading a popular science article versus understanding a textbook.) That's actually true with every other work, not only of Beethoven's but of all composers; but in the case of Beethoven's Op. 130, he seems to fly from the seeds of Romanticism to the beginnings of Shostakovich and the twentieth century in an instant. It shocks even someone without a knowledge of music. I have not familiarised myself very well with his late piano sonatas, but I wonder if there's something at this level in any of his other works from the latter period of his life.


I think that liking a piece of music has more to do with what is usually referred to as "personal taste" and the way we respond to it on an emotional level than theoretical knowledge though. I mean, opinions about music and composers are just as divided among people who can read a score than among those who can't. Speaking for myself here, and it's entirely possible that I'm wrong, but I don't think that if I was capable of reading a score that my tastes would change very much (or at all). The only difference I think would be that I could explain better WHY I like or don't like something.


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## jhar26

To answer the poll question, I like the "Grosse Fugue" - regardless of whether I'm "getting it" or not. Maybe because I first got familiar with the transcription for string orchestra before I heard the quartet version.


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## opus67

jhar26 said:


> I think that liking a piece of music has more to do with what is usually referred to as "personal taste" and the way we respond to it on an emotional level than theoretical knowledge though.


Exactly. In Copland's terms, I'm missing out on the "musical plane."



> Speaking for myself here, and it's entirely possible that I'm wrong, but I don't think that if I was capable of reading a score that my tastes would change very much (or at all). The only difference I think would be that I could explain better WHY I like or don't like something.


Generally speaking, I agree with that also. Moreover, I would like to know _why_ a certain work or set of works is considered great, revolutionary, and what makes that composer a visionary. That is why you would never [perhaps seldom is the right word to use here] see me declare something as being the greatest or the worst. At the least I try to avoid putting forward such statements. All I can speak of are works that are my most or least favourite.

Of course, the task of evaluating recordings for myself is also something I would like to learn.


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## Guest

After an opening of isolated phrases, or of phrases that consist of both notes and silences, there's an extended section of fugal writing, not the one line then the next then the next as one used to get in Bach, but all the staggered lines all at once. (And it's a double fugue, too, note, one theme long and lyrical,* one theme short and syncopated. ) Then there's a lyrical section in which the lines are presented a bit more transparently, and without the propulsive energy. After a charming little bit that's almost a rustic dance, the propulsive, contrapuntal section returns--not quite as propulsive; it's broken up from time to time, or rather one could say that it incorporates silence as part of the line again. 

All in all, it not only uses the same materials throughout, but even returns to the treatment of those materials, the closing being an expansion of the opening. All of which sounds pretty meaningful to me. ("Meaning" in music often defined as having something to do with repetition and development.)

That leaves one really puzzling comment, that the Grosse Fuge has weird instrumentation--it's a string quartet! 

*read "melodic"!


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## David C Coleman

Well I happen to like the Grosse Fugue Finale to the Op 130 String Quartet. I think it goes to show that Beethoven was just a little bit of a rebel. A little bit of a non-conformist. Which you find throughout his career really.
He always pushed the boundaries of music, and I admired him for that.
I might "not get it" but then I don't "get a lot of Wagner and lot of 20th century music. But I do prefer it to the rather inferior and ordinary thing that replaced it..


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## SPR

laugh. I remember this topic coming up in a different thread recently.

Having only spent a few years seriously listening to classical music - one can certainly take my commentary with a few grains (or pounds) of salt.

It is complete rubbish from my perspective of wanting to actually listen and enjoy music. It is interesting structurally (maybe), what of it. It is the musical equivelant of studying differential equations and abstract math to get a better understanding of the universe, as opposed to gazing into the heavens with your own eyes and seeing beauty of a different sort. It is, basically, a waste of my time.

Many seem to want to trip over themselves using this as evidence of LVBs brilliance. Yeah, it is interesting in a peverse sort of way... just like a road accident. 'rebel', 'challenging', 'difficult', 'pushing the envelope', 'visionary'. All well and good, but it still remains an assault on the ears as well as the (correction 'my') sensibilities.

I tend to be in the group saying it is "as incomprehensible as Chinese" or an "indecipherable, uncorrected horror." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grosse_Fuge

Other than that, I have no strong feelings about the piece.  Obviously, I am only fit to listen to predictable, tonal (sneer), muzak, fit for the great unwashed masses.

I just listened to Haydn String Quartet in D maj op.76/5- II. Largo ma non troppo, cantabile e mesto. Good little piece, that one - makes me weep nearly. Grosse fuge? Just plain Gross, though it too makes me weep.


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## SPR

I found this laying out there...

Of the Grosse Fugue, Beethoven wrote, "When the instruments have to struggle with monstrous difficulties...when each has different figures to cut across each other... amid a host of dissonances... when the Babylonian confusion is complete, the result is a concert only Moroccans can enjoy."

I say: Babylonian confusion? 'exactly'. Good for him.


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## jurianbai

heard this pieces in internet several times but not owned a recording.

I vote "i don't get it" maybe because it's simply difficult to enjoy. it sound like an atonal stuff from nineteen century. i read in wikipedia and other internet resource that the late string quartet is one whole piece and Grosse Fuge become the final of the pieces. 

btw, reading posts in this thread also give enlightment to the works.


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## jhar26

"One of my favorite pieces of music" would be taking it a step too far, so after doing a bit of thinking I voted for "brilliant, but not on my playlist" even though I think it's fascinating and listen to it occasionally. I guess I'm somewhere between those two categories. "I don't get it" may also be a correct vote for me, but I still don't get what don't get precisely means and voting for that category would also imply that I don't like it, which isn't the case.


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## Lang

Well, it is one of my favourite pieces of music. I love it, and have loved it from the moment I first heard it.

If you were to ask me 'Why?' I probably couldn't tell you, apart from the fact that for me, Beethoven in his later years was writing music that I find absolutely transporting.


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## SPR

'transporting'.

Hmmm.

I suppose that is why I voted 'I don't get it', even though
I want to select the 'deaf' choice.

However, my aversion is simply based on it's sound, which
Is horrid.... But that is what Beethoven was aiming for it seems.


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## Elgarian

I blew the dust off the Emersons' 'Late Quartets' today, inspired by this topic, and listened again. It's been years, and my memory has been too kind to the Grosse Fugue: I found it a lot more horrible than I remember it being. On a scale of -10 (hopelessly intolerable) to +10 (Heaven), where silence scores zero, it weighs in at about -4 or -5, that is, I find it quite a lot less attractive than silence. I suppose the general score for the quartets hovers at around -1 or -2.

So I neither like it, nor do I 'get' it - two quite separate statements (and I think maybe we need a special thread to pursue this 'getting' and 'liking' business further).


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## opus67

jurianbai said:


> i read in wikipedia and other internet resource that the late string quartet is one whole piece and Grosse Fuge become the final of the pieces.


The phrase _Beethoven's late [string] quartets_ usually refers to his works with the opus numbers 127, 130, 131, 132, and 135. The Grosse Fuge, which was originally the final movement of Op. 130, was later (re-)published as Op. 133 at the request of Beethoven's publisher, because the audience at the time couldn't bear it. A new, more "listenable" (or "gettable" ) movement was appended to the end of Op. 130.


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## Guest

Elgarian said:


> I neither like it, nor do I 'get' it - two quite separate statements


Yes, and here are two more separate statements, often, as on this thread, collapsed into one:

"I don't like it." - "It's horrible."

That won't deserve a separate thread, however, as no one will be convinced that "I don't like it" does not necessarily mean "It's horrible." The evidence of one's own senses, in this regard at least, seems to trump everything--common sense, intelligence, logic, humility--you name it, "If I don't like it, it's crap" overrides all.

It's truly appalling how convinced people can be that their single, individual, and often blinkered perceptions are so good as to be universally valid. Neither "I don't get it," nor "I don't like it" are statements about Beethoven's Grosse Fuge. Nor are "horrible," "intolerable," "horrid," or "simply difficult to enjoy." They are all statements about a listener's perception of the piece.

That that's true can be illustrated by the fact that some listeners find the same piece "brilliant" and "transporting." Those are statements about perceptions, too, but at least those perceptions are positive, opening up the possibility that the Grosse Fuge is indeed likable and comprehensible. (Notice, too, that the two people who used those words made no pretense of talking about anything but their own perceptions, either!)

And finally, just to illustrate my point, and to assure the esteemed contributors to this thread that I'm not attacking them personally, I offer an experience of mine. I once heard a piano piece by Scelsi that I thought was the most pointless and tedious music I had ever heard. At that time, I pretty much "got" and "liked" most of the twentieth century music I had heard up to that point. But that Scelsi was terminally putrid. And I thought the same of other Scelsi I heard. Then, after about ten years of avoiding Scelsi, and listening to lots of other things, I mentioned to a friend that Scelsi was one of the worst composers I'd ever heard. He suggested, kindly, that I should give the guy another listen, that perhaps there was more to Scelsi than I thought, that perhaps in those ten years I'd listened to enough other stuff to listen to Scelsi now and enjoy it.

Needless to say, I swallowed my pride and gave Scelsi another listen. Spectacular! Scelsi is now one of my favorites. So long as I persisted in avoiding his music, I had no opportunity to enjoy it. Even more to the point, so long as I continued to think it putrid, I was unlikely to ever hear it as anything else. Only when I was persuaded to be open to it, could I hear it afresh. Was it bound to happen that I liked it? No. But only by being open to it would the possibility exist.


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## Andy Loochazee

some guy said:


> ... and to assure the esteemed contributors to this thread that I'm not attacking them personally ...


Esteemed contributors? Don't make me laugh.


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## SPR

true enough. Elgarian made an analogy in another thread comparing the first impressionist paintings - and how they were seen as complete junk compared to well known 'good' paintings. A fantastic illustration when applied to music. So good in fact, that I am having a difficult time casting judgement on... well anything anymore.

However, my perseptions are universally valid. *I* am the only person who matters.. (grin) and the grosse fuge remains a curiosity only. Take the poll on this thread for example. Even for those with the particularly challenging and annoying attitude that everything is wonderful if given a fair chance, or if one is only able to see it. That a small pile of poo merely needs to be understood for what it is, and not to be scorned or mocked, but rather... loved in all its poo-ness. (ok, so I made that word up.) To do otherwise simply demonstrates how shallow and intollerant we are - and how we lack understanding or appreciation of true art.

(all in fun, of course.  )

I too have the Emerson version of his late q's. Listening again, why not. This really goes on for 14:54? Im not sure I can last that long.... its actually making me uncomfortable.


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## jhar26

Elgarian said:


> So I neither like it, nor do I 'get' it - two quite separate statements.


I don't know. What if a professonal pianist says that he doesn't like the music of, say, Schumann or Chopin? I'm sure that he 'gets it' in terms of what the musical structure is and all that. And on the other hand you have someone who doesn't know anything at all about music theory but is genuinely moved by that same music. Who of the two understands (or 'gets') that music the most?


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## SPR

jhar26 said:


> ....Who of the two understands (or 'gets') that music the most?


a good question. Does it matter? I think both would have merit of some kind, though perhaps for vastly different reasons.


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## jhar26

SPR said:


> However, my perseptions are universally valid. *I* am the only person who matters.. (grin) and the grosse fuge remains a curiosity only. Take the poll on this thread for example. Even for those with the particularly challenging and annoying attitude that everything is wonderful if given a fair chance, or if one is only able to see it. That a small pile of poo merely needs to be understood for what it is, and not to be scorned or mocked, but rather... loved in all its poo-ness. (ok, so I made that word up.) To do otherwise simply demonstrates how shallow and intollerant we are - and how we lack understanding or appreciation of true art.


Well, I don't think that those who claim to love the "Grosse Fugue" do so to pretend that they know something more than the rest of us. In fact, I like it myself. I don't LOVE it as much as his "Waldstein sonata" or "Fidelio" or the "9th symphony", but I do respect it, accept that it pushed the boundaries so to speak and find it fascinating music - nothing more, nothing less.


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## Andy Loochazee

jhar26 said:


> Who of the two understands (or 'gets') that music the most?


There was once a thread here on the subject of whether musically qualified people get more out of the music than those who are mere listeners with no formal training. There was quite a clash of views on this subject.

For those interested, it may be worth a read through that thread:

http://www.talkclassical.com/1247-im-not-musician.html


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## Elgarian

some guy said:


> Yes, and here are two more separate statements, often, as on this thread, collapsed into one:
> 
> "I don't like it." - "It's horrible."
> 
> That won't deserve a separate thread, however, as no one will be convinced that "I don't like it" does not necessarily mean "It's horrible." The evidence of one's own senses, in this regard at least, seems to trump everything--common sense, intelligence, logic, humility--you name it, "If I don't like it, it's crap" overrides all.


I suggested a separate thread because it really _is_ a separate discussion, even though the Grosse Fugue is the topic that ignited its flame. It would spoil the Grosse Fugue discussion if we embark on the other one here.

I agree entirely that 'I don't like it' is frequently used absurdly as a weapon of criticism, but I don't necessarily share your pessimism that no one can be persuaded to think otherwise. For the record, and to be clear, I consider myself entirely incompetent at assessing the merits of the Grosse Fugue as a work of art, though I am very competent at recognising that I personally find it quite horrible. But I've grown to love far too many horrible things, over the years, to believe that my personal taste at any moment in time has any objective value whatever.


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## Elgarian

jhar26 said:


> I don't know. What if a professonal pianist says that he doesn't like the music of, say, Schumann or Chopin? I'm sure that he 'gets it' in terms of what the musical structure is and all that. And on the other hand you have someone who doesn't know anything at all about music theory but is genuinely moved by that same music. Who of the two understands (or 'gets') that music the most?


This is why we need a separate thread. We can't get anywhere without understanding what we each mean by the words 'get' and 'like'. I've started one here.


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## Weston

I don't "get" the Grosse Fugue, and I don't really "like" it in the sense of it being soothing or picturesque -- I think. Actually I'm not sure. It is on my playlist however because I feel it _almost_ within my grasp, at least the first few moments are. Then I loose track of what's going on.

This tantalizing mirage effect of music that is almost understood is what keeps me coming back to it. It is more like a musical puzzle than something profoundly spiritual and that's how I approach it. I enjoy it far more than serialism. It does not seem to fit any time period and exists in its own realm.


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## jhar26

SPR said:


> That a small pile of poo merely needs to be understood for what it is, and not to be scorned or mocked, but rather... loved in all its poo-ness. (ok, so I made that word up.) To do otherwise simply demonstrates how shallow and intollerant we are - and how we lack understanding or appreciation of true art.


Not as far from the truth as you may think, actually...  

http://www.artnewsblog.com/2006/08/****-art-cloaca-machine.htm


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## LindenLea

It is a deeply agonized sound, I actually find it quite difficult to listen to, it is certainly one of the most monumental dramas ever contained within a single fugal structure, but I can't pretend that it makes any musical sense to me when you hear some of the great masterpieces LvB was also working on during the same period in his life. But that doesn't render the Grosse Fugue as rubbish for a minute, Jackson Pollock and much of Picasso doesn't make any artistic sense to me either, but one can still realise when looking at it that there is a very great genius at work.


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## Andy Loochazee

Beethoven can do no wrong in my book. 

SQ 13 (of which the Gross Fuge was the original ending) is not my favourite of Beethoven's late SQs. That's reserved for SQ 14, but it's my second favourite. 

These late SQs are widely considered to be among the most important pieces of classical music ever written, at least among people who know what they are talking about. I am rather surprised by some of the more negative comments about the Gross Fuge contained in this thread. In one case, it isn't just this piece that has come under attack but the whole of Beethoven's late SQs. I can only express even greater surprise at this, as I would imagine that this is normally something most self-respecting classical music fans might rather keep quiet about. 

I have always taken the Gross Fuge to be a work of considerable achievement and it is extremely forward-looking. However, I can see that, for some, taken on its own it may well appear somewhat strange and inaccessible. In that case, may I suggest that the best way to appreciate it is not to listen to it in isolation but as part of the overall SQ 13 that it was designed for. 

I have several versions of the late SQs. The set which I particularly like is by the Guarneri Quartet. I normally listen to music at my PC and find something else to do as well which doesn't spoil a reasonable level of concentration (e.g. surf or whatever). If the Gross Fuge is substituted for the revised last movement, and one listens to the whole of the string quartet you will be far less shocked (if that is the right word) by the final movement. The whole SQ flows quite well. While the Gross Fuge contains a good deal of dissonance it returns at the end to a much calmer, tonal structure. Try it a couple of times, and I'm pretty sure that sceptics might well change their mind that it does fit together well, just as Beethoven had intended.


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## SPR

Andy Loochazee said:


> Beethoven can do no wrong in my book....
> ...These late SQs are widely considered to be among the most important pieces of classical music ever written, at least among people who know what they are talking about. .... I am rather surprised by some of the more negative comments ....


The above three independant statments speak volumes, do they not?

'at least among those who know what they are talking about'.? OK then. I dont know what I am talking about. I freely admit it.  I choose to dislike them in my ignorance.


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## SPR

Andy Loochazee said:


> Try it a couple of times, and I'm pretty sure that sceptics might well change their mind that it does fit together well, just as Beethoven had intended.


I have little doubt that it fits together well if you use a sliderule, a calculator - and the correct Dick Tracy (tm) decoder ring and astrological alignment. However, it does not paint the sort of musical soundscape that I find sufficiently pleasant, is all.


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## jhar26

SPR said:


> The above three independant statments speak volumes, do they not?


For the record - my posting that link was not intended as a comment on your opinion about the Grosse Fugue and neither does it have anything to do with my own opinion about the piece.


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## Elgarian

Andy Loochazee said:


> In one case, it isn't just this piece that has come under attack but the whole of Beethoven's late SQs.


Are you referring to my post? Hardly an 'attack', surely? I thought it was an admission of my own shortcomings! I quote: "I'm perfectly happy to tick the 'genius' box on the basis of what others so obviously discover in works like this, but I have little hope of ever seeing it for myself."



> I can only express even greater surprise at this, as I would imagine that this is normally something most self-respecting classical music fans might rather keep quiet about.


If this forum were to become a place where we needed to be ashamed of admitting our inability to understand something, it would be a grim place indeed.


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## Andy Loochazee

SPR said:


> I have little doubt that it fits together well if you use a sliderule, a calculator - and the correct Dick Tracy (tm) decoder ring and astrological alignment. However, it does not paint the sort of musical soundscape that I find sufficiently pleasant, is all.


No one needs anything like that - sliderules etc- to appreciate one of the finest pieces of music ever written. My suggestion of listening to the whole SQ (not just the end bit) was made in good faith as an attempt to understand better the Gross Fuge itself. It scarcely justifies your feeble attempt at humour, if that's what it is supposed to be.


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## SPR

alas.

Feeble humor and ignorance. My prognosis is far worse than I expected.

'self respecting classical fans' keeping quiet? ...clearly, only only the ones that 'know what they are talking about'?

this, my good friend, is where I respectfully bow out.


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## Weston

SPR said:


> The above three independant statments speak volumes, do they not?
> 
> 'at least among those who know what they are talking about'.? OK then. I dont know what I am talking about. I freely admit it.  I choose to dislike them in my ignorance.


You would like humorist / writer Dave Barry's article about an old run down broken chair he saw as a work of art for $20,000.00 or so in an art exhibit. The whole article is hilarious and it concludes stating (I'm paraphrasing) "I admit I'm a complete ignoramous when it comes to art. So YOU buy the chair.!"

In the case of the Gosse Fugue, I guess I did buy the chair, or at least a Clevlend Quartet CD.


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## Weston

SPR said:


> However, it does not paint the sort of musical soundscape that I find sufficiently pleasant, is all.


Avoid Krzysztof Penderecki's _Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima_ at all costs then. On second thought, you should hear part of it at least once so you'll know why you are avoiding it.


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## nefigah

I've been waiting to vote on my own poll for a while now, as I've only recently obtained a recording of the late SQs.

Though the Grosse Fuge (my apologies for the superfluous 'u' in the original post, to those it offended) was always intriguing to me, it was when I listened to it in the context of the whole quartet that I was sold on it. I now see a suggestion (plea?  ) for others to do the same, and I can totally agree with it! The slow movement which proceeds it is so emotional and sweet, I think it really "sets the stage" for breaking new ground. It reminds me somewhat of the 9th symphony, where I think the 3rd movement serves a similar purpose. Similarly, there are moments of calm in the movement itself--I think it goes for a new type of contrast, in addition to usual contrasts of dynamics/tempo etc. I don't think Beethoven was always concerned with his music being pretty, though it certainly is when he wants it to be.

Oh, and *sorry* (I think) for my usage of the phrase "I don't get it"--I know it's ambiguous and not totally relevant to the liking of a piece, but I felt an option on the poll was needed that, as it were, declined to respond "for now." (That is, "I haven't really formed an opinion yet, or it may change.") In retrospect, I probably should have just said that, except it did inspire discussion, which is always nice!


----------



## SPR

Weston said:


> You would like humorist / writer Dave Barry's article about an old run down broken chair he saw as a work of art for $20,000.00 or so in an art exhibit. The whole article is hilarious and it concludes stating (I'm paraphrasing) "I admit I'm a complete ignoramous when it comes to art. So YOU buy the chair.!"
> 
> In the case of the Gosse Fugue, I guess I did buy the chair, or at least a Clevlend Quartet CD.


well said.

I have the Emerson disc.. the one with the hickory nuts on it. An apt image I would suggest. Hard nuts with goodness inside.

That is...if you like hickory nuts. 

And yes, I have listend to all of it. 
-S

p.s. Dave Barry on Chaucer: "In a somer sesun whan softe was the sunne, I kylled a younge birde and I ate it on a bunne."

I read chaucer, it is often as funny as that! (...or at least as linguistically tricky....)


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## Andy Loochazee

I am pleased to see that "nefigah" has not been put off by the negative comment made by some people here about the G-F. He has now come back and reported that he has listened to SQ 13 with the G-F substituted for the usual last movement, and finds the whole work agreeable and meaningful. His comments actually make musical sense, rather than the dross that passes off as comment in some of these threads. I trust that others will attempt to listen to SQ 13 sympathtically in this manner, which was the main point that I have been attempting to make.


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## Kuhlau

There's so much in this thread that I could have picked up on, but this statement from Andy really nails it for me:



Andy Loochazee said:


> I have always taken the Gross Fuge to be a work of considerable achievement and it is extremely forward-looking.


Extremely forward-looking? I'll say!

Listen to this extraordinary movement again, then go immediately to any movement from Bartok's Fourth String Quartet. Or to the chamber music of Tippett or Britten. Or even to the first movement of Nancarrow's Third String Quartet. Notice anything?

What Bela, Michael, Benjamin and Conlon did so many years after Ludwig is proof enough that the cantankerous old German, though deaf, could still hear the future. He achieved something truly pioneering with this finale. It clings to the very outer limits of Classical form, yet never entirely abandons it. More strikingly, it reaches out ahead for a century or more and eventually finds its reflection in some of the most innovative, imaginative and provocative music produced in the last 100 years.

So if I now do that very cliched thing and declare Beethoven a 'visionary', you'll have to excuse me. Either that, or show me the work of another composer to whom this label can be attached with equal propriety.

FK


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## Elgarian

Kuhlau said:


> So if I now do that very cliched thing and declare Beethoven a 'visionary', you'll have to excuse me. Either that, or show me the work of another composer to whom this label can be attached with equal propriety.


I'm just nit-picking over the use of words here, really - but 'visionary' doesn't imply that the vision somehow anticipates the future. There are many composers and artists to whom I'd be inclined to attach the label 'visionary' with comparable propriety, whose vision is not of the future, but of a different order or plane of existence, irrespective of what we perceive as the progression of the development of art.


----------



## Kuhlau

Elgarian said:


> I'm just nit-picking over the use of words here, really - but 'visionary' doesn't imply that the vision somehow anticipates the future. There are many composers and artists to whom I'd be inclined to attach the label 'visionary' with comparable propriety, whose vision is not of the future, but of a different order or plane of existence, irrespective of what we perceive as the progression of the development of art.


Good point, well made, sir. 

I was using 'visionary' to support to Andy's assertion of 'extremely forward-looking' - though I accept that more than one type of vision is possible in art.

FK


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## Elgarian

Kuhlau said:


> . I was using 'visionary' to support to Andy's assertion of 'extremely forward-looking' - though I accept that more than one type of vision is possible in art.


Yes, of course I understood. I was thinking aloud, really, about the (I believe, often excessive) significance we place on an artist whose work appears to anticipate subsequent developments in art. However, that's the subject not for this thread, but for another - which I may even decide to start sometime soon!


----------



## Weston

Elgarian said:


> Yes, of course I understood. I was thinking aloud, really, about the (I believe, often excessive) significance we place on an artist whose work appears to anticipate subsequent developments in art.


So, in the same way that Beethoven's last sonata, the Op. 111, variation 3 doesn't really look forward to jazz, but happens to have a rhythm that just reminds us of jazz -- so the Grosse Fuge does not anticipate Bartok?

I think I can see that. The piece sounds very much like Beethoven to me, but a Beethoven who has temporarily returned from somewhere we may not follow in this life.


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## Elgarian

Weston said:


> So, in the same way that Beethoven's last sonata, the Op. 111, variation 3 doesn't really look forward to jazz, but happens to have a rhythm that just reminds us of jazz -- so the Grosse Fuge does not anticipate Bartok?


There were two aspects to my comment, really. One was your interpretation, where we need to be careful about what we deduce from similarities between an artist's work, and subsequent developments in the art. There used to be a lot of talk about some of Turner's sketches and late paintings 'anticipating abstract art', for example - but that was a misreading of Turner's Romanticism. They may _look_ like abstract paintings, but Turner would have dismissed such an idea out of hand.

But the other (equally important) point is about the whole issue of regarding art as some kind of grand progress through history with us as the pinnacle, so that an artist whose work anticipates later developments is especially revered, either because we see it seemingly fitting into the Great Scheme, or because of the effect his work had on others. We attach too much importance to that. Cezanne isn't a great artist because Picasso and Braque used him as a springboard to Cubism. He's a great artist because he painted great pictures.

I'm not remotely competent to comment on the intrinsic musical merits of the Grosse Fugue, but I just wanted to flag up that to regard it more highly because it anticipates Bartok (say) might be a dodgy path to take.


----------



## Kuhlau

And to think I was with you all the way up until this:



Elgarian said:


> I'm not remotely competent to comment on the intrinsic musical merits of the Grosse Fugue, but I just wanted to flag up that *to regard it more highly* because it anticipates Bartok (say) might be a dodgy path to take.


It's the bit in bold that troubles me. Nowhere in my support of this finale did I suggest we should 'regard it more highly' because of the works it appears to anticipate. Rather, we should regard it highly simply because it was a pioneering work of art - one that _perhaps_ pre-empted, by some distance of years, some of the 20th century's most bold musical innovations.

To say this isn't the same as saying that Beethoven's work _necessarily led to_ Bartok's. It merely serves to highlight the former composer's visionary nature - even if the vision in question wasn't one arrived at consciously. However, I suspect it may have been, at least in part. Wasn't Beethoven himself reported as having said about that finale that it was some sort of natural progression in music? I'm sure I read that somewhere.

FK


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## Elgarian

Kuhlau said:


> Nowhere in my support of this finale did I suggest we should 'regard it more highly' because of the works it appears to anticipate. Rather, we should regard it highly simply because it was a pioneering work of art - one that pre-dated, by some distance of years, some of the 20th century's most bold musical innovations.


I'm not sure whether our apparent disagreement over this is arising less through substance, than through subtle nuances of expression that are clouding the meaning of what we're saying. There's a significant difference between, on the one hand, showing, through art, something that's never been shown before (which is what I would value a great deal); and on the other, anticipating some innovation that later became 'mainstream', as it were (which I wouldn't value particularly highly, in itself). But actually expressing the difference between those two situations is something I'm finding rather difficult to do, satisfactorily.



> To say this isn't the same as saying that Beethoven's work _necessarily led to_ Bartok's.


 Indeed not. I think I'm partly pointing up the possibilities of being misled by looking back through the history of art with the benefit of hindsight; and partly expressing my uneasiness about the value we place on what we see as the progress of art through history.

One last attempt to explain my position clearly (almost certainly in vain, alas, because this is intensely difficult): the _Grosse Fugue_ must ultimately be capable of standing on its own as a work of art _regardless_ of how it may or may not resemble music that came later. Those resemblances may be interesting and worth talking about, but they don't have any bearing on its intrinsic value as art.

I think we probably agree on that; I think (and I know you'll tell me if I'm wrong) that the source of any disagreement lies in the way we _talk_ about that basic fact.


----------



## Kuhlau

Elgarian said:


> There's a significant difference between, on the one hand, showing, through art, something that's never been shown before (which is what I would value a great deal); and on the other, anticipating some innovation that later became 'mainstream', as it were (which I wouldn't value particularly highly, in itself). But actually expressing the difference between those two situations is something I'm finding rather difficult to do, satisfactorily.


I think you've explained the difference adequately - for me, certainly. But I'm curious to know why you would value less art that anticipates (or at least, _appears_ to anticipate) later innovations. Cannot _both_ of the positions you've set out be of equal value?



Elgarian said:


> ... _Grosse Fugue_ must ultimately be capable of standing on its own as a work of art _regardless_ of how it may or may not resemble music that came later. Those resemblances may be interesting and worth talking about, but they don't have any bearing on its intrinsic value as art.
> 
> I think we probably agree on that ...


I'd say we're broadly in agreement on this, yes. But if - just _if_ - this groundbreaking finale _did_, in some way, pre-empt much later musical invention, can we not attribute to it _additional_ value, seeing it not only as a great work _*of*_ art, but also as a great step forward _*for*_ art?

FK


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## Elgarian

Kuhlau said:


> I'm curious to know why you would value less art that anticipates (or at least, _appears_ to anticipate) later innovations. Cannot _both_ of the positions you've set out be of equal value?


I don't think that's quite what I said - at least, it's not what I meant. I didn't mean I would value art_ less_ if it anticipated later developments; just that I wouldn't value it more, on that account.



> But if - just _if_ - this groundbreaking finale _did_, in some way, pre-empt much later musical invention, can we not attribute to it _additional_ value, seeing it not only as a great work _*of*_ art, but also as a great step forward _*for*_ art?


But aren't they two distinct things? On the one hand we have its value as a piece of music in its own right - available to all those individuals who wish, or are able, to accept the richness of musical experience that it offers. On the other hand, there's an appreciation of its place in the Grand Progress of Music. That is additional value, yes - but a different kind of value. How valuable it is depends on an appreciation of the Grand Progress of Music, and how much value is placed on _that_.

I think this is where our real difference of viewpoint lies, and it ties in with other discussions we've had. I don't value very highly the Grand Progress of Music (or of any art) - and certainly not as much as you do. I value the art of Cezanne as highly as I can value any art, for the sheer magnificent perception-changing quiddity of what it is. But by contrast, its relation (whatever that may be) to subsequent developments in painting is merely interesting. I don't endow that relation with extra value, as you do. It's not a matter of one of us being right and the other wrong, I think; rather it's about what we value, as individuals, and what we don't.

Incidentally (and don't worry, I _know_ this isn't the place to discuss it) this explains to a very large extent our different respective attitudes to Elgar.


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## Kuhlau

Elgarian said:


> But aren't they two distinct things? On the one hand we have its value as a piece of music in its own right - available to all those individuals who wish, or are able, to accept the richness of musical experience that it offers. On the other hand, there's an appreciation of its place in the Grand Progress of Music. That is additional value, yes - but a different kind of value. How valuable it is depends on an appreciation of the Grand Progress of Music, and how much value is placed on _that_.
> 
> I think this is where our real difference of viewpoint lies, and it ties in with other discussions we've had. I don't value very highly the Grand Progress of Music (or of any art) - and certainly not as much as you do. I value the art of Cezanne as highly as I can value any art, for the sheer magnificent perception-changing quiddity of what it is. But by contrast, its relation (whatever that may be) to subsequent developments in painting is merely interesting. I don't endow that relation with extra value, as you do. It's not a matter of one of us being right and the other wrong, I think; rather it's about what we value, as individuals, and what we don't.


Valuing things simply for what they are is something I do all the time, so I don't think we disagree at all on that point. I still contend, however, that additional value can be added to those works of art which act as stimuli for other, equally great works. For example, Beethoven's Third Symphony is valued by me for what it is, but _also_ for what it sparked off: a 'big bang' of sorts that heralded the Romantic movement in music. I see that as particularly valuable.

So yes, thinking about it more deeply, I suppose I _do_ agree that it depends entirely on what we each regard as being valuable. 



Elgarian said:


> Incidentally (and don't worry, I _know_ this isn't the place to discuss it) this explains to a very large extent our different respective attitudes to Elgar.


Glad you mentioned this. I have something more to say in the Elgar thread. I'll post it up later ... 

FK


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## Bach

The late quartets are the greatest pieces of pure music ever written. I don't need to support that statement. 

To understand the Grosse Fuge is to see the face of God.


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## Weston

I can regard it highly based on the vast musical journey taken from the early Mozartian Beethoven to the late profound experimental pieces. I can also admire it for the sheer hubris it must have taken to submit such a thing for publication in those days.

I'm afraid I'm going to need an annotated score to see the face of God, however. I really should try to track down an analysis.


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## Kuhlau

Over at another classical music forum there's a discussion currently raging about whether or not it's okay for today's performers not to care about or show any interest in either music that _isn't_ contemporary, or conversely, music that _is_.

It began when someone recounted a meeting with a member of the Belcea Quartet, whom - it is alleged - gave them the clear impression that they had no desire to explore any string quartets written after those of Britten. I found the following extract from that discussion particularly interesting:



> I would suggest that musicians can learn something about Beethoven by studying modern composition, since Beethoven has fed and nourished its composers and music is a single, continuous and self-refreshing art.


I feel this comment is pertinent to the discussion we've been having in this thread about Beethoven's 'influence' on later composers' works. Admittedly, I've elected to repeat this remark because it supports my own ideas about the ever-onward tread of musical progress. But I wonder what others involved in the discussion here will have to say about it (if anything at all)?

FK


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## SPR

Kuhlau said:


> Over at another classical music forum there's a discussion currently raging about whether or not it's okay for today's performers not to care about or show any interest in either music that _isn't_ contemporary, or conversely, music that _is_.
> .... FK


Are you saying that one side of the the debate suggests that everything one needs to know about music can be extrapolated from music created in ... lets say for example.. the past 25 years?

music history acedemics would likely boggle at the notion, if I was to guess.


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## Kuhlau

I'm saying very little, actually, SPR. Perhaps you'd care to read the thread for yourself: Is it okay not to care?

FK


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## ProletariatMD

*A Link to minimalism*

I was 12 years old when I first heard Beethoven's Gross Fugue from a "Vox Box" compilation. The moment sticks out in my mind. The modernity of the music
was a shock; the composer's torment painfully evident.

I am now a middle-aged physician with a teen-aged son who listens to Sakamoto and Glass. I showed him the links going backward to Terry Riley, Bartok and Beethoven.

This pithy, short piece is clearly an inflection point in the development of minimalism.


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## mueske

"One of my favourite pieces of music"

I was also baffled at first, not believing this was Beethoven. I didn't know what to think at the time, I mean, it didn't sound very pleasant, but, it's Beethoven, so I kept listening.

It just grew on me, there are days that I'm walking along the street and humming it, I'm actually listening to it right now, this thread just made me want to listen to it, and I'm also trying to figure out why some of you don't 'like' it, I still don't get you people.


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## Margaret

I'm certainly learning a lot from being on this forum. I had absolutely no idea the Grosse Fuge was so controversial. All I've ever done is listen to it. Yes, I noticed it was quite different from the other string quartets especially the early ones. It's probably one of my least liked among his string quartets, but I still like it.


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## Artemis

Although I have long been a great fan of Beethoven and liked most of his output almost instantly, this particular piece, the Grosse Fuge, troubled me a lot at first as I did not enjoy it. Purely because it was written by Beethoven I persevered with it and eventually came to "enjoy" it after a fashion. Of its type I think it is heaps better than anything written by Bartok or by anyone else. Nevertheless, in all honesty I cannot really say that I am over-awed by this kind of (heavily dissonant Classical) music, and I much prefer other late Beethoven SQs as well as corresponding SQ material by Schubert. Anyone fairly new to classical music would probably find the Grosse Fuge a nightmare, and I can also easily sympathise with the more seasoned fans who say they do not like it at. It just may help if they realise that it is a highly regarded piece by perhaps the greatest of all composers in terms of broad popular appeal down the ages.


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## Edward Elgar

Why couldn't Beethoven have just written happy, tuneful music that everybody instantly liked? Why did he have to go off and create an outstandingly original work that showed all the hallmarks of a genius and contained so many hidden treasures one could analyse it for a lifetime and still not uncover its innermost secrets? He lost his way if you ask me!


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## Lisztfreak

Edward Elgar said:


> Why couldn't Beethoven have just written happy, tuneful music that everybody instantly liked? Why did he have to go off and create an outstandingly original work that showed all the hallmarks of a genius and contained so many hidden treasures one could analyse it for a lifetime and still not uncover its innermost secrets? He lost his way if you ask me!


Because, thank Heavens, he wasn't another Mozart. 

P.S. I love the sinister main theme of the Fugue. And it's so jumpy and energetic with its dissonance.


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## Bach

What is it with you folk and your ignorant classification of Mozart. Listen to his bloody music, I implore you. Piano Concerto No. 24, Don Giovanni, Requiem - for the love of christ.


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## Lisztfreak

Bach said:


> What is it with you folk and your ignorant classification of Mozart. Listen to his bloody music, I implore you. Piano Concerto No. 24, Don Giovanni, Requiem - for the love of christ.


Those are precisely the works I can listen to and find great. Plus a one-digit number of others.


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## Bach

Yes, and there are many more in that vein. 

Don't judge him by his light music written for aristocratic entertainment.


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## Herzeleide

The Grosse Fuge is indeed, as its name would seem to suggest, great. 

Aestheticisation of rough, post-Bachian, counterpoint. 

I wouldn't go so far as to say it's 'the greatest', though.


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## JustAFan

Love the Grosse Fugue - a real trip, a gem of inestimable value - the piece that first opened my ears to what a string quartet can be beyond the Classical era.

And agree with the above post that characterizes Beethoven as a rebel - yup, this is gutsy stuff. Is there a greater arc of accomplishment in all music than the Beethoven progression of 16 quartets?


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## Kuhlau

JustAFan said:


> Is there a greater arc of accomplishment in all music than the Beethoven progression of 16 quartets?


Not sure. But it's certainly an impressive achievement by any standard.

FK


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## Bach

JustAFan said:


> Is there a greater arc of accomplishment in all music than the Beethoven progression of 16 quartets?


No. There is not.


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## Lisztfreak

Bach said:


> No. There is not.


I could as well agree totally.


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## Sid James

Opus67 said:


> ...I must also mention that I never listen to Op. 130 with the "requested" finale, nor do I listen to the fugue as a standalone work. Beethoven intended it to be the last movement, and that's how I will listen to the quartet.


I've recently become acquainted with the _Grosse Fuge_, as well as the _String Quartet Op. 130_. On the EMI CD I have (Alban Berg Quartet) the Grosse Fuge is put at the end of that work, as it was originally, and then the last track is the replacement finale Beethoven wrote.

I think that the _Grosse Fuge _makes more sense if it is placed in it's original context. I don't have any problems with the piece, but I like to listen to the whole CD right through, not just the _Grosse fuge _on it's own. So I chose "brilliant, but not on my playlist" as I like it, and the whole Quartet, but it's not one of my favourite pieces of music.


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## Sorin Eushayson

My vote was "One of my favourite pieces of music," though I think it probably falls more in between the top two selections; it's certainly on my music player and I consider it one of the most impressive pieces of chamber music ever written.

From what I've read it seems you usually come away from this work with one of two impressions: Beethoven was losing his mind and/or completely deaf at the time of its writing or the work represents the complexity and brilliance of an advanced musical mind. Of course, if you're in the former then this may bring you to call into question the competency of the whole of Beethoven's late works, many of which you would be hard pressed to consider of poor quality. I tend to listen this this piece and think the latter; just because I don't understand what's going on doesn't make it any less great. I don't suppose to know more than Beethoven when it comes to such things. Just a thought.


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## wolf

Sorin Eushayson said:


> My vote was "One of my favourite pieces of music," though I think it probably falls more in between the top two selections; it's certainly on my music player and I consider it one of the most impressive pieces of chamber music ever written.
> 
> From what I've read it seems you usually come away from this work with one of two impressions: Beethoven was losing his mind and/or completely deaf at the time of its writing or the work represents the complexity and brilliance of an advanced musical mind. Of course, if you're in the former then this may bring you to call into question the competency of the whole of Beethoven's late works, many of which you would be hard pressed to consider of poor quality. I tend to listen this this piece and think the latter; just because I don't understand what's going on doesn't make it any less great. I don't suppose to know more than Beethoven when it comes to such things. Just a thought.


How can you hail a piece of music as great if you really don't like it? I don't care in the least if his work represented the complexity and brilliance of an advanced musical mind, why is that interesting WHILE I'M LISTENING? I find that my heart beats faster, I am not ashamed to admit that I often have tears in my eyes listening to Mzt or Beethoven, the geniality IN THE MUSIC is so fantastic - not in the knowledge that the composers are supposed to be genial...

Who says that liking it makes you know more than Beethoven? Did Beethoven write his music, hoping that NOBODY would like it, as noone of course would ever know more than he did? GrF is so spectacularly fantastic that I can't find words, I count it as one of the truly great, earthshattering pieces of music. If I didn't, I wouldn't consider it great.


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## Sorin Eushayson

wolf said:


> How can you hail a piece of music as great if you really don't like it? I don't care in the least if his work represented the complexity and brilliance of an advanced musical mind, why is that interesting WHILE I'M LISTENING? I find that my heart beats faster, I am not ashamed to admit that I often have tears in my eyes listening to Mzt or Beethoven, the geniality IN THE MUSIC is so fantastic - not in the knowledge that the composers are supposed to be genial...
> 
> Who says that liking it makes you know more than Beethoven? Did Beethoven write his music, hoping that NOBODY would like it, as noone of course would ever know more than he did? GrF is so spectacularly fantastic that I can't find words, I count it as one of the truly great, earthshattering pieces of music. If I didn't, I wouldn't consider it great.


I think someone needs to take a chill pill. 

First off, I don't think you correctly read what I wrote. Nowhere will you find me saying that I don't like the Große Fuge, I enjoy it immensely; I'm merely saying that a lot of the criticism may very well come from not understanding it, which is by no means a fact. Secondly, works that are more advanced and complex and that come from advanced musical minds are of higher quality, Mozart and Beethoven being excellent examples of this. Third, again, I never said that liking the Große Fuge makes you know more than Beethoven, don't know where you're coming from on that one. I did say that I do not know more than Beethoven with regards to musical composition, which is true of me, you, and just about everybody. Just clarifying.


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## wolf

Sorin Eushayson said:


> I think someone needs to take a chill pill.
> 
> First off, I don't think you correctly read what I wrote. Nowhere will you find me saying that I don't like the Große Fuge, I enjoy it immensely; I'm merely saying that a lot of the criticism may very well come from not understanding it, which is by no means a fact. Secondly, works that are more advanced and complex and that come from advanced musical minds are of higher quality, Mozart and Beethoven being excellent examples of this. Third, again, I never said that liking the Große Fuge makes you know more than Beethoven, don't know where you're coming from on that one. I did say that I do not know more than Beethoven with regards to musical composition, which is true of me, you, and just about everybody. Just clarifying.


I can't find my Xanax...Well I do not agree that works that are more advanced and complex are of higher quality. (Never do I forget when I tried to convert my uncle to a organ Reger Nut, warming him up with Bach BW 582, and when all the contrapunctual magnificense of Reger followed, my uncle laughed outright, and I had to do the same. The geniality and simplicity of the Master only made Max sound ridiculous...)

It was mostly this that set me off:


Sorin Eushayson said:


> ...I tend to listen this this piece and think the latter; just because I don't understand what's going on doesn't make it any less great.


In my mind there is nothing to 'understand', if you like it and want to listen to it, you DO understand...

Also you write a very advanced english - I have a little difficulty following it - I interpreted the 'hard pressed' thing wrongly perhaps.


----------



## Grosse Fugue

Its not 'pretty' but it is viseral and I like it. Beyond that its hard for me to put it into words.


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## Il Seraglio

Obviously, it is a complex piece and treaded a lot of new ground, but without sounding like a square, I am often left wondering if there is truly an underlying purpose to it or if it is simply the Emperor's New Clothes. Has it gone down in history for being a work of musical genius or just because it was something nobody else would have dared to write at the time?


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## hlolli

Mendelssohn said:


> Throughout the years of classical music listening i've come to hate Beethoven...of course not of his music (all of it) but for his fans...they just think that music begins with and ends to Beethoven (at least some I've met).That led me for a long period indeed to stay away from his music (except from a couple of late sonatas for my piano studies)...


Funny Because Menelsohn was in team with Scumann and Brahms against Liszt, Berilioz and more Avant Garde in the war of the romantics. Mendelsohn stated that Beethoven was the perfection of tonality and we should not seek beyond that of what Beethoven did.


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## mueske

Il Seraglio said:


> Obviously, it is a complex piece and treaded a lot of new ground, but without sounding like a square, I am often left wondering if there is truly an underlying purpose to it or if it is simply the Emperor's New Clothes. Has it gone down in history for being a work of musical genius or just because it was something nobody else would have dared to write at the time?


Beethoven's late output all tread equal ground. It's safe to assume that the grosse fugue wasn't meant as a 'publicity stunt' so to speak.


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## Il Seraglio

mueske said:


> Beethoven's late output all tread equal ground. It's safe to assume that the grosse fugue wasn't meant as a 'publicity stunt' so to speak.


Believe me, that's the last thing I can imagine Beethoven doing. I don't doubt that the Grosse Fuge represented the baby steps of high Romanticism and modern music, nor that it fits in cohesively with his late string quartets, but it's just that I am in two minds as to whether to treat it as a towering musical achievement or just a work that happened to be extraordinarily experimental for its time.


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## SPR

The fact that we are here, 185 years later, admiring, struggling and discussing it.... speaks volumes.


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## starry

Il Seraglio said:


> Believe me, that's the last thing I can imagine Beethoven doing. I don't doubt that the Grosse Fuge represented the baby steps of high Romanticism and modern music, nor that it fits in cohesively with his late string quartets, but it's just that I am in two minds as to whether to treat it as a towering musical achievement or just a work that happened to be extraordinarily experimental for its time.


I look at it as part of the string quartet it is part of, as I said in my comments on op130 in this part of the forum. I'm not sure it helps trying to read history backwards with this as regards either romanticism or modernism, I would see it more as part of the development of Beethoven's output.


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## James clerk

I don´t get it.


----------



## jurianbai

As mentioned years ago, I don't get it.

For me, Beethoven's quartet 1 to 11 were my ideal string quartet. There we got main melody line, the melody then got improvised, contrapunted, harmonized etc with great creativity, not to mentioned the melody itself is memorable and not boring.

here, in his late quartet series, Beethoven sacrified maybe majority of his listeners, like me. No more 'listenable' melody line that runs from beginning to the end in the Late quartets. What we have is an experiment more in structure, harmony rather than a melody, and I don't get it.

There is a thread http://www.talkclassical.com/8007-you-all-music-theory.html suggest that an ideal works should be balance between theoretical and listenable. Here in one of my notes on Grosse Fugue we got a line Schubert saying, "After all these (Beethoven's late quartets), what else left to us to write?" , in opposite the publisher requested a revise work due to hard to understand. So is it only music expert like Schubert that think this is a great work while a majority left "don't get it".


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## realdealblues

I love it. Honestly it's one of my favorite String Quartets. To me it's disturbing and rhythmic and exciting and terrifying. Right from the beginning, the constant jarring of discordant notes entwined with some beautiful melodies hooks me in every time. The middle sections go from playful to depressing on a whim. For whatever reason it makes perfect musical sense to me as well as brings out some wonderful emotional sensations.


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## Huge

Love it. Was listening to it last night in fact.
Oh and the last poll option made me laugh


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## Huge

Grosse Fugue said:


> Its not 'pretty' but it is viseral and I like it. Beyond that its hard for me to put it into words.


You shouldn't take the people who voted against you seriously btw   

(sorry bad joke).


----------



## Grosse Fugue

Huge said:


> You shouldn't take the people who voted against you seriously btw
> 
> (sorry bad joke).


Thats Ok I'm used to being misunderstood


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## HarpsichordConcerto

nefigah said:


> Beethoven's infamous work, sure to incite quite the diverse range of opinions.
> 
> Where do you stand?


Voted "Brilliant but not on my playlist".

- Probably technically brilliant (I'm not musically trained) as Beethoven wrote it, after a long career. It sounds complicated to me.

- Pushed the boundary, probably wanted to write something very different as far as the average ear was concerned but within the rules. More to do with structured sounds, rather than music. Just like the atonal stuff, it's not really music, but structured sounds, so you can make four lawn mowers produce sounds that are structured (i.e. not random but following some musical rules). Thus the _Grosse Fugue _is "forward" looking in the sense that some composers/20th century stuff sound that way, but not truely forward looking in the sense that all music that came afterwards was influenced by it. That's how I go about trying to "appreciate" it, as a non-musically trained individual.

Like J. S. Bach's _Art of Fugue_, its brilliance is probably more apparent by reading/studying the music notes on score, rather than played out to the ear.

As for those who "love" it (like they "love" Beethoven's symphonies, piano concertos, sonatas etc.) but fail to explain why, these are some real interesting folks who probably want to be a little different, just like the _Grosse Fugue_.


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## Sebastien Melmoth

Prefer the late Bb-major Quartet with the Groß Fuge as the finale as Beethoven intended.

Also like to hear the late substitute Finale as a quartettsatzen like Schubert's D. 703.


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## mueske

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Voted "Brilliant but not on my playlist".
> 
> - Probably technically brilliant (I'm not musically trained) as Beethoven wrote it, after a long career. It sounds complicated to me.
> 
> - Pushed the boundary, probably wanted to write something very different as far as the average ear was concerned but within the rules. More to do with structured sounds, rather than music. Just like the atonal stuff, it's not really music, but structured sounds, so you can make four lawn mowers produce sounds that are structured (i.e. not random but following some musical rules). Thus the _Grosse Fugue _is "forward" looking in the sense that some composers/20th century stuff sound that way, but not truely forward looking in the sense that all music that came afterwards was influenced by it. That's how I go about trying to "appreciate" it, as a non-musically trained individual.
> 
> Like J. S. Bach's _Art of Fugue_, its brilliance is probably more apparent by reading/studying the music notes on score, rather than played out to the ear.
> 
> As for those who "love" it (like they "love" Beethoven's symphonies, piano concertos, sonatas etc.) but fail to explain why, these are some real interesting folks who probably want to be a little different, just like the _Grosse Fugue_.


"I don't understand it musically so others can't either. Huzah for me!"

I love the Grosse Fugue, I also love the first symphony and the ninth. The first piano sonata, and the last... 
For not one of them I can exactly explain _why_ I love them. I can vaguely say they "speak" to me, but that'll get us nowhere. - Can't a person just like something?

And all music is just structured sound, even Händel.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

mueske said:


> And all music is just structured sound, even Händel.


I won't bother getting into a fight with you about semantics; structured sounds versus music. Some folks in this world might think murder is a form of art.


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## mueske

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> I won't bother getting into a fight with you about semantics; structured sounds versus music. Some folks in this world might think murder is a form of art.


Enlighten me, why is the Grosse Fugue not music? There's plenty of melodies, interesting harmonies, driving rhythms. What's not to like?


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## HarpsichordConcerto

mueske said:


> Enlighten me, why is the Grosse Fugue not music? There's plenty of melodies, interesting harmonies, driving rhythms. What's not to like?


Firstly, let me say that I respect your liking of the Grosse Fugue. If you find it enjoyable, then that's very good for you.

Personally, I love Beethoven's music. He is certainly one of my tops. But I find the Grosse Fugue to be in the experimental category of his, and if I was rigorously trained in music, I would probably appreciate it most by reading/studying the score of it. But as I am not, my ears and years of listening experience are therefore the only determinants. I simply don't find it uplifting in the way that I do with the vast majority of Beethoven's works. That's all.

I'm also curious by folks who say they thoroughly enjoy the Grosse Fugue and other Beethoven's works. (I find that enviable). My question is it the same "type" of enjoyment as listening to say, his Piano Concertos or the beautiful third movement of symphony no.9? Or is it a different type of enjoyment? Is it a faculty that I am lacking?


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## Sebastien Melmoth

The Groß Fuge is Beethoven in proto-Schönberg mode.


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## mueske

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Firstly, let me say that I respect your liking of the Grosse Fugue. If you find it enjoyable, then that's very good for you.
> 
> Personally, I love Beethoven's music. He is certainly one of my tops. But I find the Grosse Fugue to be in the experimental category of his, and if I was rigorously trained in music, I would probably appreciate it most by reading/studying the score of it. But as I am not, my ears and years of listening experience are therefore the only determinants. I simply don't find it uplifting in the way that I do with the vast majority of Beethoven's works. That's all.
> 
> I'm also curious by folks who say they thoroughly enjoy the Grosse Fugue and other Beethoven's works. (I find that enviable). My question is it the same "type" of enjoyment as listening to say, his Piano Concertos or the beautiful third movement of symphony no.9? Or is it a different type of enjoyment? Is it a faculty that I am lacking?


I wouldn't say it's the same type of enjoyment. I'm also not rigorously trained in music, but there's just something about fugues in general that makes them fascinating to listen to. I find it incredibly rewarding to hear motives, hearing them change and eventually maybe returning.

There's also - at times - a kind of brutal ferocity and intensity, it feels like you can get a glimpse of what was really going on in Beethoven's mind. To me, it's emotionally, musically and intellectually rewarding.

I think the fugue, and the quartet it belongs to, might just be my favourite piece of music Beethoven wrote. And considering what he wrote, that's not a small thing to say.


----------



## starry

I already gave my thoughts on it in the op130 thread. Since then I see several have agreed with me that it should be seen in the context of the op130 quartet. I don't see what relation it has to Schoenberg.


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## Sebastien Melmoth

Schönberg's starting points were the farthest points of experimentation of his predecessors; hence, compare the Groß Fuge with *Schönberg's d-minor String Quartet (Op. 7)* and you may see/hear points of similiarity in the chromaticism, thick instrumental writing, intense mode of expression, etc.

In any case, the Groß Fuge isn't a fugue in the Bachian manner; really it's only fugual in certain sections of a multi-sectional (or multi-episodic) work.


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## Creatures of Prometheus

*The Validation of Music*

The Grosse Fugue validates - totally, completely, absolutely and utterly - everything there is to validate about music in general and Beethoven in particular.


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## Creatures of Prometheus

I want to agree with you there...but then I think of the 32 piano sonatas, very tricky


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## Sebastien Melmoth

Looking at the 'big picture', anyone notice the similiarities between the Große Fuge and the Ode to Joy movement of the Ninth?

Each is multi-eposodic featuring marches, fugual passages, quartet ensemble sections, etc....


----------



## Creatures of Prometheus

I don't think there are any similarities between the Grosse Fugue and any other piece of music - Beethoven's or otherwise. It's simply a monument that stands on its own.


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## starry

I've always found the last movement of the Hammerklavier harder to like than this.


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## djmomo17

Here's my guitar version of the Grosse Fugue using Midi...since I play guitar I thought this might be fun to hear.


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## Serge

Creatures of Prometheus said:


> I don't think there are any similarities between the Grosse Fugue and any other piece of music - Beethoven's or otherwise. It's simply a monument that stands on its own.


Interesting! I am not a music scholar or anything, but there's a piece by Bach called Gigue (Preludes & Fugues, Partita No.6) that to my untrained ears sounds strikingly like a direct precursor to Beethoven's Grosse Fuge. At least to the theme that I personally identify Grosse Fuge by. So I am kinda surprised that nobody has mentioned it yet in the context of this thread. There it is for everyone's convenience. Am I hearing something wrong?


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## Charon

I haven't heard it before. I really need to get a recording and listen to it though.


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## Yoshi

I had to listen to it at least 3 times before I started enjoying it. 
I'm not sure if I 'get it' but now I like it.


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## Toccata

Jan said:


> I had to listen to it at least 3 times before I started enjoying it.
> I'm not sure if I 'get it' but now I like it.


For your possible added appreciation of the Große Fuge, may I repeat the suggestion made once or twice previously in this thread that it is a good idea to listen to it in the context of the whole of String Quartet No 13, Op 130. Find a good recording of it (I happen to like the Guarneri Quartet but there are several others) and substitute the Große Fuge (also by Guarneri) for the revised Finale. It sounds far less strange this way and fits together very well in my opinion. The whole of Op 130 (performed in the way Beethoven originally intended) is probably my overall favourite Beethoven work.


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## Aramis

Recently I'm listening to this thing over and over again. This string quartet composition is as titanic as his 5th, 7th or even 9th symphony, it doesn't need huge brass and stuff to match them, it's one of finest works by Ludwig Van, one of these works that prove his superhumanity and inspired genious, anyone who think it's noisy failure of deaf composer should be thrown into baboon's ***, thank you :tiphat:


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## Webernite

Serge said:


> Interesting! I am not a music scholar or anything, but there's a piece by Bach called Gigue (Preludes & Fugues, Partita No.6) that to my untrained ears sounds strikingly like a direct precursor to Beethoven's Grosse Fuge. At least to the theme that I personally identify Grosse Fuge by. So I am kinda surprised that nobody has mentioned it yet in the context of this thread. There it is for everyone's convenience. Am I hearing something wrong?


There are obvious similarities, but I think it might just be coincidence. It's very easy to find things like this if you look hard enough. The opening notes of the Sixth Symphony are reminiscent of the beginning of Bach's Fuga in G minor for solo violin, but again, it's probably just chance.

Any way, I like the Grosse Fuge. The dissonances don't really bother me any more. I'm used to them, and they make the work sound angrier and more exciting. The way he switches between angry dissonances and that pleasant melody is very witty, I find.


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## Yoshi

Opal said:


> For your possible added appreciation of the Große Fuge, may I repeat the suggestion made once or twice previously in this thread that it is a good idea to listen to it in the context of the whole of String Quartet No 13, Op 130. Find a good recording of it (I happen to like the Guarneri Quartet but there are several others) and substitute the Große Fuge (also by Guarneri) for the revised Finale. It sounds far less strange this way and fits together very well in my opinion. The whole of Op 130 (performed in the way Beethoven originally intended) is probably my overall favourite Beethoven work.


Hmm... thank you for the suggestion. 
I should do that.


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## Yoshi

I think I get it now... althought wasn't it way ahead of its time?
I actualy enjoy it alot now.


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## Serge

Webernite said:


> There are obvious similarities, but I think it might just be coincidence. It's very easy to find things like this if you look hard enough. The opening notes of the Sixth Symphony are reminiscent of the beginning of Bach's Fuga in G minor for solo violin, but again, it's probably just chance.


Thank you for clarifying this for me. Glad I'm not just "hearing" stuff. 

I wasn't implying that Beethoven ripped Bach off, although who knows of course, just trying to address the question of the piece being absolutely unprecedented.

And welcome to the forums, btw!


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## Webernite

Thanks for the welcome. You must have good hearing, actually, because I'd never noticed the similarities until you pointed them out.


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## 4'33"

*Amusing reactions*

I'm actually quite amused at the comments here. It is a testament to Beethoven's incredible genius that some people still find his greatest work to be shocking and offending; that in almost 200 years there are people who actually still agree with the un-evolved musical dissenters of Beethoven's own time.

Part of the excitement of great art is to try not only to understand it, but to connect with it and feel your mind and soul open to the new visions laid out by the artist. With an artist as great as Beethoven, you can be assured that the trip will be well worth it. As with much of B's late music, you must go to it; it does not come to you. As with many religions and spiritual thought, true enlightenment comes often through pain and suffering. Nothing worthwhile is given - it must be earned.

The late music if Beethoven is without a doubt the most profound and greatest of all western music. If you can't like or comprehend the Great Fugue, I suggest the problem is yours, and you are truly missing out on an incredible experience.


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## charismajc

Here's what Beethoven said regarding a concert audience response to the GF (from Wikipedia):

Beethoven, enraged, was reported to have growled, "And why didn't they encore the Fugue? That alone should have been repeated! Cattle! Asses!"


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## elgar's ghost

I occasionally sequence it into op. 130 at the expense of the replacement finale but more often I prefer to hear it as a stand-alone piece. As a movement of monumental scope to end to a work I don't think it scans quite as well as the final movement of his 9th symphony - to these ears it seems a little awkward or 'busy' apropos the music that preceeded it (perhaps it was just TOO good?).


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## Couchie

For anyone struggling to appreciate this work (and also for those who simply love it), there is a great animated score here:






The notes are represented by bars, and the voices by different colours, which is extremely helpful in following the parts and making sense of the dense counterpoint. The recording is also high-quality and exceptionally clean.

I love the anxiety. The part at 4:04 is one of my favourite moments in music. When the viola (green) enters with the subject, it is simply toe-curling existential ecstasy!


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## Edward Elgar

4'33" said:


> It is a testament to Beethoven's incredible genius that some people still find his greatest work to be shocking and offending; that in almost 200 years there are people who actually still agree with the un-evolved musical dissenters of Beethoven's own time.


Goes some way in explaining why a lot of people don't like contemporary music. I mean, if you don't like Beethoven, what _do_ you like?!


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## PianoCoach

*Getting Beethoven*

As a Beethoven lover, please let me offer some insight to those who "don't get" the fugue. Not as a way to offend, but hopefully as a positive perspective.

Beethoven followed the Classicists (Mozart, Hayden) with a strong philosophical belief that "the greater the tension, the sweeter the resolution". Those of us who love Beethoven probably love the strong tension that pushes us to the point of anxiety before the music takes us to a euphoric state. (In my silly way, I compare listening to Beethoven like eating a fire ball -- hot cinnamon burns your mouth until the sweet sugars sooth the taste.)

Late Beethoven works can be enjoyed thru the whole experience. The tension, the stress, the anxiety but ultimately the euphoria. This is true of Opus 111 (mvmt 1 tension followed by the final 2nd and mvmt euphoria) Is it Beethoven's heavenly reward after a lifetime of struggle? Is it Beethoven's belief that he was a good man behind his rough personality? etc.

So to make a long story short, for those who don't get the fugue ...........

Go back and listen to it. Hear the strong theme theme as the onset. Live thru the tension and don't be afraid to become irritated because ......... in the final minute you'll hear the intro theme again and you will feel relief. The remainder you will feel gentleness, euphoria and peace with the world.

That's really what "getting Beethoven" is all about.

Enjoy


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## 4'33"

Unfortunately most people who like Classical are no better than people who like pop music - They love the pretty melodies or think that classical music is for relaxing or whatever. Beethoven, probably more than any composer, is a true Artist - His music embraces the beauty and the violence, the pain and the bliss of the world. Some people just can't deal with that. With Beethoven, art is a life and death matter.


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## Sebastien Melmoth

Probably easier to grasp the Groß Fuge seeing its *sectional divisions* (much like the Ode An de Frunde).


----------



## RodrigoNovaes

*One of my favorite pieces*

To be quite honest, before I heard the SQ 13 (with the GF ending) I found chamber music quite boring (especially because my background in music comes from the piano) exception for Villa-Lobos and a few other pieces.

At first I didn't "like" the GF it but I found it very interesting. The second or third time I listened to it I started to "understand" what was going on.

Now I have 12 Late Quartets CDs, and the complete Beethoven SQ from Takacs.


----------



## Sid James

I think one has to also understand that there are no strict or "set in stone" rules about how to write a fugue, as far as I understand(?). Fugue (or fuga) in Italian means "flight." Having listened to a fair number of fugues over the years - from guys as diverse as J.S. Bach, to Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt, Ives, Bernstein, Hovhaness, Carter, Piazzolla, Tippett, Britten, Durufle, Widor and I could probably go on - I have learnt that what is a fugue means different things to different composers. Beethoven's _Grosse Fuge_ is just one type of fugue, it is his personal "take" on this musical form. There are probably no "correct" or "incorrect" fugues. Just compare how two wildly different composers treat a fugue on the same B-A-C-H motto theme (it comes up at towards the end of both these works) -

*Franz Liszt's* _Prelude & Fugue on the name B-A-C-H_ (composed 1855) (this is the original organ version, the composer also did a transcription for piano, which would be more appopriate to compare, but I cannot find it on youtube)






*Charles Ives* -_ Three Page Sonata _ for piano solo (composed 1905) - the B-A-C-H motto theme comes in right at the end (played very rapidly, repeated a few times), but watch out for other "quotations" earlier on, including the opening theme of Beethoven's 5th symphony!






Clearly, one's inability to "understand" Ive's "take" on this theme, or accept it as a "normal" fugue after comparison with Liszt's "take" only speaks to the flexibility of this musical form, whether one composer is "right" and the other "wrong" has absolutely NOTHING to do with it!!!


----------



## Guest

I wish Liszt or Busoni had transcribed it for solo piano--it would be even more powerful, but then again, it might lose a little of its gritty edge. Still, I'd love to hear it!


----------



## Curiosity

It was hearing this piece that really kickstarted my Beethoven fascination. I can't say I enjoyed it on first listen but it certainly sounded completely different from anything I'd heard before - to my ears crazier than the Bartok and Penderecki I was already familiar with. Definitely an intense piece that never fails to make me feel uneasy.


----------



## Kopachris

I personally love all of Beethoven's string quartets. I like most of his piano sonatas and other chamber music, too, but some of his piano sonatas (e.g. Moonlight) have been ruined for me due to their use in pop culture. I can only listen to his symphonies rarely, preferring Tchaikovsky, Mahler, or Dvořák (or even, God forbid, Prokofiev!) instead. I do, however, like that comment by PianoCoach about the contrast between tension and resolution and have found that all composers I enjoy listening to do that same thing in their music, but as I don't like cinnamon candies, I prefer to compare music to other things. 

Also, to clear up some confusion, a fugue does have a strict form, involving an exposition of the subject(s), a series of middle entries of the subject in other keys, and episodes between entries of the subject(s). However, just like with any form, a fugue may simply be part of a larger form, or the fugue itself may contain smaller forms within it, or the larger form may contain several fugues, some of which may be left incomplete. In such cases, the movement will simply be called a "fugue," even though it's not entirely a fugue.


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## mmsbls

I voted "one of my favorites" although that might be a slight exaggeration. When I first heard the fugue, I did not enjoy it. Similarly I preferred his early quartets to his late quartets. Now things are quite different. I'm not sure what exactly changed, but I love the grosse fugue and especially his last quartet (16).


----------



## annie

i believe that Beethoven composed it for us to appreciate the rest of his compositions...to make us think how could the world have been like if his others were this gross. In my opinion and knowledge this is the most overrated piece ever...kind of a point of proof to be claimed by wannabes


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## Curiosity

Well that's absolute nonsense and shows a lack of familiarity with Beethoven's other late works. The finale of the Hammerklavier is even more demanding for the listener, for starters. Even in his early days, Beethoven's works were full of eccentricities that made demands upon the listener. The Grosse Fugue only develops upon that further.


----------



## annie

Curiosity said:


> Well that's absolute nonsense and shows a lack of familiarity with Beethoven's other late works. The finale of the Hammerklavier is even more demanding for the listener, for starters. Even in his early days, Beethoven's works were full of eccentricities that made demands upon the listener. The Grosse Fugue only develops upon that further.


is this "absolute nonsense" for my comment?


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## Curiosity

It sure is.


----------



## annie

disagreeing and passing judgement are two very different concepts. i don't know who do you think you are to judge others' opinions but _please _do not judge me ever again.


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## Klavierspieler

Don't bite the newbies, Curiosity...


----------



## Curiosity

annie said:


> disagreeing and passing judgement are two very different concepts. i don't know who do you think you are to judge others' opinions but do not judge me ever again.


I said that your opinion was absolute nonsense, and that is my opinion. Unless I misunderstood your point, you just judged the opinions of everybody who thinks highly of this piece! You should have been prepared darling.


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## annie

ok. i know you now...


----------



## Couchie

Kontrapunctus said:


> I wish Liszt or Busoni had transcribed it for solo piano--it would be even more powerful, but then again, it might lose a little of its gritty edge. Still, I'd love to hear it!


There's a solo version here by Louis Wrinkler: http://imslp.org/wiki/Große_Fuge,_Op.133_(Beethoven,_Ludwig_van)

However the contrapuntal lines are so different at times there's no choice but to simply abandon some occasionally for solo performance. It's better suited for a duet, Beethoven himself made such a transcription (available on the same site)


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## Curiosity

Here's that solo piano arrangement being played on a fortepiano. Nice performance though much too mannered imo.


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## Iforgotmypassword

I like it fine. I like it a lot in fact... very experimental for the time.


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## Lenfer

Brilliant, but not "on my playlist" it's very complex and I love complexity however it's just not my cup of tea. I like to sit on the chaise longue with my eye closed and escape. I can't escape with *Grosse Fugue* far to "busy" for me

Sorry *Ludwig*.


----------



## BubbleBobble

an excellent piece of music - probably my favorite Beethoven work, just because it sounds like it could have been written in the early 20th century

it helped me to gain a great appreciation for Beethoven; before I wasn't really into his stuff except some of his piano sonatas (which now I love almost all of those)

among string quartets, it's definitely one of my favorite


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## kv466

4'33" said:


> Unfortunately...Some people just can't deal with that... With Beethoven, art is a life and death matter.


Or merely a matter of life and death. I agree, some folks can simply not deal with greatness, in any form.


----------



## Itullian

I'm still comprehending it all, but something monumental is definitely there. and all those years ago. maybe he was an alien, huh?


----------



## grepnix

It feels to me especially in the earlier parts as of a man in extreme emotional pain. Like a trapped animal... It screams to be let out... Slowly, the agonising screams relent and the creature even has time to laugh at his plight... Eventually coming to terms with the human experience.

I love it.


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## aleazk

a master piece, i love late beethoven


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## Dodecaplex

Curiosity said:


> Here's that solo piano arrangement being played on a fortepiano. Nice performance though much too mannered imo.


*How is it possible for him to look so bored??*


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## violadude

Dodecaplex said:


> *How is it possible for him to look so bored??*


Maybe he's nervous about screwing up.


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## GrosseFugue

Hey, this is a no-brainer for me.  I LOVE IT! A true "head-banging" piece! Had the opportunity
to download a version of it I'd never heard by the incomparable 
Furtwanger: http://furtwanglersound.com/recordings/beethoven/beethovens5egmcavgfy47/

It's for FULL STRING ORCHESTRA. I think it's the greatest version I've ever heard!  Even better
than Otto Klemperer's orchestra version.


----------



## GrosseFugue

About the fortepiano version on Youtube:
Doesn't sound gut-wrenching enough. I have a version for FOUR HANDS on regular piano that is pretty vicious.


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## Scarpia

Anyone that thinks they don't like the grosse fuge should listen to the Furtwangler recording made with the VPO. It is a live recording that I have in a DG set of live VPO recordings, I don't know if it is currently available. (There is also a Berlin Philharmonic recording, but I haven't heard that one.) There is some magic he does that makes all the odd stuff in that music make sense.


----------



## GrosseFugue

Scarpia said:


> Anyone that thinks they don't like the grosse fuge should listen to the Furtwangler recording made with the VPO. It is a live recording that I have in a DG set of live VPO recordings, I don't know if it is currently available. (There is also a Berlin Philharmonic recording, but I haven't heard that one.) There is some magic he does that makes all the odd stuff in that music make sense.


Scarpia,

You've got me really curious about that Furt/VPO recording. I have the one with Berlin Philharmonic. Do you have a link to where one can get the VPO? Thanks!


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## Scarpia

GrosseFugue said:


> Scarpia,
> 
> You've got me really curious about that Furt/VPO recording. I have the one with Berlin Philharmonic. Do you have a link to where one can get the VPO? Thanks!


This is the release I have:

A live recording from 1954. I poked around and saw a few CD releases that might be the same recording, but none currently in print.


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## brianwalker

I find beauty in its torturous austerity but it's not even one of my favorite movements for the String Quartet, if by favorite you mean Top 10. Other movements from the Late Quartets and Haydn's op. 76 along with some of Schubert would crowd it out. It would probably rank somewhere in the bottom teens or upper twenties for me.


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## NightHawk

The Quartet Op. 130 in Bb with the Grosse Fugue and the substitute ending is my favorite of all Beethoven's quartet work. The great fugue or 'Great Flight' is on the same plane as the fugal finale of the Sonata Op. 106 in Bb 'Hammerklavier'. Intensely personal works that will always incite extreme opinion and for some, joy. I don't think 'getting it' is part of the equation - I think 'letting it' is... like a poem not understood, yet something in the play of words and metaphor 'gets you' instead. Beethoven's immortality as a composer is not at stake here - and even if we incinerate ourselves, he's heading out into space in opposite directions at the same time in the 'Cavatina' (5th movement) from this quartet. 
'


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## ProudSquire

I Definitely like it very much. The intensity of it impels me to listen.


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## NightHawk

Welcome. Nice avatar, and I agree - the work in question (Op. 133) is impelling.



TheProudSquire said:


> I Definitely like it very much. The intensity of it impels me to listen.


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## Ukko

NightHawk said:


> Welcome. Nice avatar, and I agree - the work in question (Op. 133) is impelling.


"Impelling"?


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## EarthBoundRules

This is one of those pieces that I connected with instantly upon hearing it for the first time. I feel like a part of me has changed after listening to it. Even now it's hard to feel the same way I did when I first heard this movement, although I keep trying to reach the high again.

...The longer I type this the more it seems like some kind of drug addiction. I might need help...


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## FrankieP

I love it - think it's a brilliant demonstration of Beethoven's absolute mastery of form. 
Coincidentally i blogged about it earlier today: http://mahlermahlermahler.blogspot.com/ - didn't really say much on it but posted a link to my fav recording of it.


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## NightHawk

impelling - present participle of im·pel (Verb)
Verb:	
Drive, force, or urge (someone) to do something.
Drive forward; propel: "vital energies impel him in unforeseen directions".
More info »Merriam-Webster - The Free Dictionary 



Hilltroll72 said:


> "Impelling"?


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

Beethoven's best music for string quartet of all time. _Much_ better than any quartet he wrote in the 1790s.


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## mensch

The Grosse Fuge is one of Beethoven's most remarkable works and I think a testament to his genius. The fact that is sounds so modern to our ears is also because of the fugal form and counterpoint. I'm still astounded by a lot of Bach's works utilising harmonies you normally wouldn't associated with "old" music.

The success of Beethoven's piece is highly dependant on the performance. I've heard some mediocre performances transforming the fugue in a muddy soundsoup.


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## Melvin

I had casually attempted to listen to the piece at least a few times... but it wasn't until i _saw_ the fugue with my eyes that I was compelled to listen to it more. Trust me, I was once like you; ignorant to the grandeur of the Grosse FUGUE

It's not something I can listen to repeatedly day by day... but when the time is right, (and I always know when), it's time for the Grosse Fugue! Every time I hear it, it somehow always manages to amaze me a little bit more than it did the last time; There's always something new that I can draw from it with each listen, because it's such a cryptic piece.

I assume the full entity of the Grosse Fugue will never reveal it's self to anyone upon their first listen... it offers much to be explored!!


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## mensch

That quote in the YouTube video by Alexander von Oulibicheff is something I have thought about as well:

_"Beethoven took a liking to uneuphonious dissonances because his hearing was limited and confused. Accumulations of notes of the most monstrous kind sounded in his head as acceptable and well-balanced combinations."_

I'm not sure if this is true. True, the fugue contains rather incredible dissonances, but they're largely the result of the fugal form chosen by Beethoven. Also, Beethoven was completely deaf from 1814 and onwards but a lot of his Late Period work doesn't show this tendency towards "uneuphonious dissonances". I'm not sure if Von Oulibicheff is still taken seriously by modern scholars, but the point he wants to make seems rather unfair based on the fugue alone.


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## Orange Soda King

I was lucky to hear the Emerson String Quartet perform the entire B flat quartet, and they used the Grosse Fugue as the finale. It was outragous!! I love this piece so much. It's so intense and powerful.


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## Alydon

I love Beethoven, but hated the Grosse Fugue with an intensity as I would hate a cancer.

Over the years I have on occassions played the piece and found it unbearable. I feared the piece - the pain and suffering was always too much to take and it was as though I was looking into the blackness of someone else's despair - it was like looking at a painting by say, Francis Bacon - it's too much, but you know it means something. Then one day a few years back I had the new Takacs recording and put it on in the car. All of a sudden when the Grosse Fugue began I was transfixed with awe at the sheer power and human invention - it screamed pain, but somehow through that something else emerged - a resolution, a triumph of the human spirit which had become cathartic for me, the listener. At last I had 'got' the Grosse Fugue; it wasn't an easy journey, or a nice one, but I had at last come to grips with probably the most difficult piece by my musical god. It was worth the effort.


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## Llyranor

I can't say I listen to this often, but the more I actually do, the more I love it. I'm not sure why, though (easy answer: because it's brilliant, duh!), because it doesn't sound like the 'type' of music I'd go for usually. I think there's something about it just being overwhelming (but not to the point of feeling completely lost, and thus not feeling the music at all - as has my experience been with some more modern pieces) that keeps drawing me back.

It's one of my favorite Ludwig SQ movements, at the very least. 

I do remember reacting in a 'what is this noise???' kind of way when I first heard it, heh. But my appreciation of fugues since then has increased tremendously, so that likely helped.


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## Andy Loochazee

Alydon said:


> I love Beethoven, but hated the Grosse Fugue with an intensity as I would hate a cancer.Over the years I have on occassions played the piece and found it unbearable. I feared the piece - the pain and suffering was always too much to take and it was as though I was looking into the blackness of someone else's despair - it was like looking at a painting by say, Francis Bacon - it's too much, but you know it means something. Then one day a few years back I had the new Takacs recording and put it on in the car. All of a sudden when the Grosse Fugue began I was transfixed with awe at the sheer power and human invention - it screamed pain, but somehow through that something else emerged - a resolution, a triumph of the human spirit which had become cathartic for me, the listener. At last I had 'got' the Grosse Fugue; it wasn't an easy journey, or a nice one, but I had at last come to grips with probably the most difficult piece by my musical god. It was worth the effort.


Ah yes, it's the kind of thing that older people will tell you happens very commonly: not liking a particular work initially, maybe for years, and then changing your mind. The same thing can happen in reverse. i.e getting fed up with a specific work or more broadly a specific class of music or composer, etc. If you have got Beethoven's Grosse Fugue under your belt, you might try something like Bartok's string quartets as representing possibly the next layer of difficulty, whilst still comprising sensible, tonal music, but be warned if at first you don't succeed ...


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## Orange Soda King

Here is the complete performance of Emerson doing Beethoven Op. 130 with Grosse Fugue as the finale. In a couple movements, there is some VERY annoying rustling, and I GREATLY GREATLY apologize for that...


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## drpraetorus

The Grosse fuge smacks of being musica reservata. Music primarily for musicians and other "in the know".


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## Ramako

I like the beginning, but then I feel it wanders off a bit for about 10 minutes until the end, just chugging along.


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## Crudblud

At first I had kind of a "meh" reaction to it, everyone thought I was crazy because they expected me either to love it or be so confused that my head would explode. Then I heard it in its original context as part of the 13th string quartet, and my god! Ol' Ludwig could write some great chamber music. I actually don't listen to it very often, so I went for the second option.


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## Cheyenne

I just listened to it for the first time, with a good hour interval for what I can only call 'recovery'. At the beginning I was confused, then after a some minutes I was totally engrossed in it, to the point where my hand was sleeping at the end due to the uncomfortable position I wouldn't move from. When it was over I shed some small tears and sat still for a long time. I don't really know what to think yet, but this piece is awesome - and not the kind of modern slang awesome. What did I just listen to, and why did I do what it did?


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## Couchie

Cheyenne said:


> I just listened to it for the first time, with a good hour interval for what I can only call 'recovery'. At the beginning I was confused, then after a some minutes I was totally engrossed in it, to the point where my hand was sleeping at the end due to the uncomfortable position I wouldn't move from. When it was over I shed some small tears and sat still for a long time. I don't really know what to think yet, but this piece is awesome - and not the kind of modern slang awesome. What did I just listen to, and why did I do what it did?


Beethoven! *jazz hands*


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## tortoise

I just voted Great Fugue "one of my favorite pieces of music" though every time I hear it I feel like I'm swallowing a tarantula, thinking, "What have I gotten myself into...and why?"

It's a jarring piece. An aural assault. Downright ugly in places. And yet...

Every time I encounter the piece, I am pulled into it. I am transfixed. Why? Not sure. But I know there's something more at work here than the paradox of tragic pleasure. LVB pulls me into his maelstrom and doesn't let go until he breaks the clouds in the finale. When all is sawed and done, I feel as if I've received a benediction.

The Great Fugue may be the single most unpleasant and life-affirming work of creation I've ever encountered.


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## KenOC

mensch said:


> Also, Beethoven was completely deaf from 1814 and onwards...


First, thread duty: 10 out of 10 for Beethoven on this one. Works fine as the Op. 130 finale or standalone. And the piano four-hand version (Op. 134) is great also, Beethoven's own arrangement.

Second, I think it's agreed now that Beethoven was never totally deaf. He could still perform as late as 1815 or 1816, and improvise for friends (on some days) in the 1820s. But a lot of the time, even his ear trumpets (he had a collection) were insufficient and things had to be written down for him. So all those so-called conversation books contain what was said to him, or asked, but none of his replies!


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## mensch

KenOC said:


> Second, I think it's agreed now that Beethoven was never totally deaf. He could still perform as late as 1815 or 1816, and improvise for friends (on some days) in the 1820s. But a lot of the time, even his ear trumpets (he had a collection) were insufficient and things had to be written down for him. So all those so-called conversation books contain what was said to him, or asked, but none of his replies!


Yes I agree. I've recently finished Maynard Solomon's Beethoven biography and the deafness is indeed more nuanced. Sufficed to say it caused Beethoven a lot of distress, but the romanticised version of the tormented artist totally deprived of his most important sensory organs is a bit overwrought.

Also, I don't think the Grosse Fuge is the result of Beethoven not hearing the strange harmonies which occur in the piece and are so against the musical aesthetic of those times. Rather, the way he insists on blending fugal writing with his classical idiom creates a lot of the tension in the work.


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## bennycdn

It was meant to push the limits of writing in a fugue form,simular to the fugue in the Hammerklavier sonata.Everyones tastes are different.


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## Llyranor

This piece has really grown on me over time. Sometimes I wonder if it's just plainly my favorite composition.


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## Novelette

I've studied the Grosse Fuge over the years as part of my contrapuntal training, it isn't really so terribly confusing formally, but the ceaseless movement and wide jumps make it incredibly difficult to call it "sonorous". 

As far as fugal structures go, it's very unique. Schumann, when he was studying counterpoint, excitedly exclaimed that the Grosse Fuge and the fugue from Hammerklavier are not, in fact, fugues at all. While certainly an exaggeration, both diverge wildly from the stricter fugal and earlier "ricercar" forms, but as Marpurg noted, the fugal form is given to great flexibility. The dense treatment of Bach is perhaps the pinnacle of the art, but it is not the only correct way.

I love listening to Beethoven's fugues, the Grosse Fuge especially. And while they make formal sense, they can be difficult to listen to. With Bach, we can easily hear when the first exposition is completed, when the episode begins, when the next theme is introduced. Beethoven doesn't give us such convenient courtesy.


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## obwan

I voted Beethoven must have been deafer than we though. Not out of disrespect for the man, just that I think (from the brief except i listened to it on youtube), that Beethoven was trying way to hard. The best fugues are complex through simplicity, yet beethoven gave us complexity through complication. and it just don't mesh too well.


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## RonPetch

I just returned home after a session with Australian CentreLink. Grosse Fuge reflected my feelings and helped me to calm down. It is a cry of rage and frustation, which we all feel at times, but must have been severe for Beethoven with his physical problems. It's not a piece you can like for it's musical beauty, but it is an emotional event expressed in the medium Beethoven was a master of - music.

regards Ron Petch


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## KenOC

I can only paraphrase Richard Nixon, on seeing the Great Wall in China: "It certainly is a gross fugue."


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## RonPetch

It is an emotional work, in which Beethoven expressed anger and rage at his physical problems - in his medium - music.
Whwn I have had one of those days when nothing goes right, then it expresses how I feel and acts as therapy, or perhaps I am just a nut case anyway.

Ron Petch


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## DavidA

I heard the Amadeus Quartet play it in concert. It's really one of those works where you need to see the tremendous effort required to play it. Then you get the full power of the music. It really is an incredible piece but not on my regular playlist. One of those works we are glad is there but do not listen to often. Something to admire rather than love. A bit like the composer if you take the music away.


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## RonPetch

It should be regarded as an emotional piece. Beethoven suffered from many physical problems including his deafness. It is a cry of pain and anger expressed in his medium - music. Try listening to it when you have had a frustating and non-productive day. It is still classical music and in a sense Beethoven closed that door and opened the door to romanticism. Whatever else you may think, the Late String Quartets are a continuing source of interest and education for some of us.

regards
Ron Petch


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## Novelette

Delighted, as always, to see so much appreciation for this bold work.

Personally, I prefer that the B Flat Major Quartet be performed with the Grosse Fuge rather than the later-substituted Allegro movement. With the Allegro movement, the central moment of the whole seems to be the Cavatina, which is one of the most touching works I have yet heard. The preceding movements have a kind of energy building about them which is quickly extinguished by the cavatina. We would expect, typical of Beethoven, an especially grand finale to conclude the whole. While the substituted Allegro is turbulent and stormy, it doesn't seem to me to have the particular weight needed to terminate entire string quartet. Energy built must be released in order that rest might finally come.

Still, I won't complain about Beethoven consenting to compose a new finale. The more music he wrote, the better!


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## KenOC

Novelette said:


> We would expect, typical of Beethoven, an especially grand finale to conclude the whole. While the substituted Allegro is turbulent and stormy, it doesn't seem to me to have the particular weight needed to terminate entire string quartet. Energy built must be released in order that rest might finally come.


Here's a thought. The Cavatina, then the new finale, and *then* the Grosse Fuge! Make for quite a quartet, huh? Watch out Bruckner! 

With the iPod, all things are possible...


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## Novelette

KenOC said:


> Here's a thought. The Cavatina, then the new finale, and *then* the Grosse Fuge! Make for quite a quartet, huh? Watch out Bruckner!
> 
> With the iPod, all things are possible...


That's exactly how I have arranged that album!

With larger sets, I like to arrange tracks from different CD's so they can be more or less "in order". I arranged the 13th String Quartet in that order: ... Cavatina, Allegro Finale, Grosse Fuge. It makes for some awesome and energizing listening!


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## KenOC

Novelette said:


> That's exactly how I have arranged that album!


By my count, that makes a 52-minute quartet, the Cavatina followed by 21 minutes of B-flat allegro, the first third quasi-Haydn and the rest quasi-Bartok. Wow! You, Sir, are savage and unrestrained. But I'll give it a try. :lol:


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## Mahlerian

KenOC said:


> Here's a thought. The Cavatina, then the new finale, and *then* the Grosse Fuge! Make for quite a quartet, huh? Watch out Bruckner!


I'm pretty sure it's no accident, by the way, that Bruckner's own massive fugal finale (complete with double fugue), that of the 5th Symphony, is also in the key of B-flat major.

I also fail to hear any of Bartok in the Grosse Fuge. Schoenberg, definitely (with all of those leaps larger than an octave and the constant dotted rhythms), but no Bartok.


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## Avey

Novelette said:


> Personally, I prefer that the B Flat Major Quartet be performed with the Grosse Fuge rather than the later-substituted Allegro movement.


I agree with everyone's sentiment about the flow of the piece, from Cavatina into Grosse Fugue, but I just want to impress this position above: Beethoven intended for the Grosse Fugue to end Op. 130, that _should _be the performance. I find the consequent trend -- after angry publishers demanded something more to their liking, and hopefully the public's -- which is still the trend today, to play the Allegro Finale instead, to be a serious injustice to the composer's initial vision.


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## millionrainbows

Many, if not most average listeners of today probably think that the Grosse Fugue is clearly the product of mania, which preceeds bouts of great depression. 

In experiments with white rats, first rewarding them with cheese, and then gradually withholding the reward, the rat would at first "rage against" this withholding of cheese in extreme frustration, by flailing, and running in circles repetitively.

Then, they would eventually give up, resigned, and sink into depression and apathy.

The repetition of pattern in the Grosse Fugue is indicative of mania or a schizo-affective disorder; this sort of repetition also shows up in schizophrenic art as compulsive outlining of figures. Also, the 6/8 meter is compound, divisible by 2 or 3, which is indicative of schizoid confusion, "double meanings," and delusional metaphors.

Most average listeners of today, including Dr. Phil, would probably agree that Beethoven obviously had a mental disorder, and should have been given large doses of Thorazine, combined with electroshock therapy, to stop this bizarre composing activity and become a fully-functioning, productive citizen. :lol:


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## millionrainbows

Mahlerian said:


> I also fail to hear any of Bartok in the Grosse Fuge. Schoenberg, definitely (with all of those leaps larger than an octave and the constant dotted rhythms), but no Bartok.


The minor tonality, a lot of minor thirds, diminished sevenths, and tritones are a possible connection to Bartók.


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## Novelette

Avey said:


> I agree with everyone's sentiment about the flow of the piece, from Cavatina into Grosse Fugue, but I just want to impress this position above: Beethoven intended for the Grosse Fugue to end Op. 130, that _should _be the performance. I find the consequent trend -- after angry publishers demanded something more to their liking, and hopefully the public's -- which is still the trend today, to play the Allegro Finale instead, to be a serious injustice to the composer's initial vision.


Precisely! Beethoven poured out his genius for us in a very specific order, in order that build a particular architecture for this string quartet. As a rule, I am very interested in original intentions.

The same goes for books. I refuse to read abridgements, I prefer the original.


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## KenOC

Novelette said:


> Precisely! Beethoven poured out his genius for us in a very specific order, in order that build a particular architecture for this string quartet. As a rule, I am very interested in original intentions.


There was nothing holy about Beethoven's "original intentions." Even with the 9th Symphony, he had second thoughts about the choral finale and considered replacing it with an instrumental one. But in the end, he left it alone and used the theme he was considering in the Op. 132 quartet.

Re the Op. 130, everybody was afraid to even suggest replacing the finale, but finally brought it up with Beethoven anyway. To their surprise, Beethoven readily acceded, with the understanding that the Grosse Fuge would be published (and paid for) separately. So I suspect that Beethoven may have had his own doubts about the quartet's structure.

That said, I'll take mine with the Fuge, thank you!


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## Nevohteeb

Firsts things first. You have to comprehend Bach. Beethoven, knew Bach, and his fugues. He wrote fugues, in his music. So did Mendessohn, and Shostakovich. The Great Fugue, Op. 133, was originally, the last movement of Op. 130, but Beethoven-s publisher talked him into writing another movement, because he thought it was too difficult for the public to understand. He was right, for that time. It is a very difficult, nut to crack. Starvinsky said, that the fugue was modern for even this age. Last Summer , I had the privilege of sitting in on rehearsals, and the concert, (Aug. 4 & 5th), at Marlboro Music Festival, when the Bb+ Op. 130 quartet & the Grosse Fugue, Op. 133, were played by a supremely talented group of musicians, David McCarroll & Joel Link, violins; Helene Clement, viola, and Marcy Rosen, cello. You can listen to their interpretation on the Marlboro Music site (www.marlboromusic.org), go to the historic recording site, and scroll down on right hand side, till you reach the quartet. enjoy! I will not ever completely understand that movement, but it won-t stand in the way of listening to it, again, and again. But, first, go to Bach, and listen to his fugues, and then go back to Beethoven.


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## petter

I think, in the right mood, its a complete rush to listen to. It feels likes it tries to break deep into your brain with the tensions it creates. The way in to this piece lies within Beethoven's own creations. Is the last movement of the Hammer-clavier sonata 
a step in the right direction?


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## Cheyenne

I still find it an incredibly powerful and moving work. Favourite performances are Tokyo Quartet and Furtwängler's Chamber orchestra version (two recordigns were commercially released, only one is commonly available) - next to the 'standard' ones, that is.


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## aszkid

Initially, i listened to the 'musanim' render (



), without being conditioned by it being the 'most influential work' or the 'most contemporaneous fugue' as i am now.
At that point i was discovering classical music, and was just messing around with everything i found for a few minutes, and the first twenty seconds made me wonder if i was really listening to a string quartet by Beethoven. I got stuck there, like a salt statue, for the entire sixteen minutes. It was wonderful, brilliant, so f*cking crazy and disorienting.
Just like it happened with 2001: A Space Odyssey, the best thing that i could have ever done, was not to read about those pieces of art. Starting a marvelous experience without a single idea of what's about to come, how important it is, or how should i feel after finishing.


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## millionrainbows

I think the Grosse Fugue is a good way to convert non-classical rock/alternative listeners to the genre, as long as they have a taste for the strange and an adventurous approach to listening. I thought it was great the first time I heard it. Definitely not your "ladies' tea party" type of string quartet music! :lol:


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## Pianoxtreme

Just what the title says: gross.


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## chrisco97

I all but hated it upon first listen, but after listening a time or two afterwards (with an open mind), I started to get it. It is now one of my favourite pieces in all of classical music. I listen to it a lot.

Yes, I know, this is like the third or fourth time I have posted this on the forum. :lol:


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## Nevohteeb

No, it is not gross, it is Grosse, which in german, means large. What the heck are you doing on this site? I say, go to the rock music sites. They are much simpler to understand.


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## Blancrocher

As an aside:

Some may not have heard the 4-hand piano transcription of the GF Beethoven made, apparently in response to demand for one, so I'll post it just in case (though I doubt many will prefer it to the original):






FYI:



> In July 2005 an authentic 1826 Beethoven manuscript titled "Grande Tugue [sic] á quatre mains" was found[63][64] by a Pennsylvania librarian at the Palmer Theological Seminary in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania. The manuscript was authenticated by Dr. Jeffrey Kallberg at the University of Pennsylvania and by Dr. Stephen Roe, head of Sotheby's Manuscript Department. This was the four-hand piano arrangement of the Große Fuge, Op. 134. The manuscript had been missing for 115 years. It was auctioned by Sotheby's Auction House on 1 December 2005; it was bought for GBP 1.12 million (USD 1.95 million) by a then-unknown purchaser, who has since revealed himself to be Bruce Kovner, a publicity-shy multi-billionaire who donated the manuscript-along with 139 other original and rare pieces of music-to the Juilliard School of Music in February 2006. It has since become available in their online manuscript collection.[65] The manuscript's known provenance is that it was listed in an 1890 catalogue and sold at an auction in Berlin to a Cincinnati, Ohio industrialist, whose daughter gave it and other manuscripts including a Mozart Fantasia to a church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1952. It is not known how the Beethoven manuscript came to be in the possession of the library.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Große_Fuge#Arrangement_for_piano_four-hands


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## Fugue Meister

The gross fuge is one of my favorite things in life, although it took me some years to fully understand it. Don't get me wrong I was always drawn to it but then again I'm drawn to darker works usually. Some of the posters here seem to just not like it even after repeated attempts, I would think this is because they don't enjoy darker more extraordinarily dissonant pieces like some Bartok or Penderecki. No judgements, my dad love classical too but if something 20th century and jarringly dissonant come on while I'm visiting he'll ask me to move on to something else so I get it but I feel some posters here really would like to understand one of Beethoven's most controversial works I'd like to recommend a video I found on youtube that really takes an in depth, strike that, extremely in depth look at op. 133 (I believe he addresses it both as a stand alone work and included in the op. 130)

Let me know what you think and for the true music scholars (I never claimed to be one), what about this video is it insightful or is it just some hack who doesn't know what he's talking about, I'd like to know what some of the wiser members think.

Oh and just a warning it's a commitment, it's two hours long.


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## Mahlerian

Fugue Meister said:


> Let me know what you think and for the true music scholars (I never claimed to be one), what about this video is it insightful or is it just *some hack who doesn't know what he's talking about*, I'd like to know what some of the wiser members think.
> 
> Oh and just a warning it's a commitment, it's two hours long.


Closer to the bold. Anyone who calls Schoenberg an "evil man" who "invented atonality because he felt tonality was exhausted" is a crackpot who deserves no attention whatsoever.

His emphasis on intervals is so incredibly tedious and tendentious that I wonder how many lay listeners would actually take much away from his lecture if they didn't already understand:
1 - What a fugue is
and
2 - What an interval is


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## SalieriIsInnocent

I hear a lot of passion in the piece. It's like the Kreutzer and Le Sacre Du Printemps had a baby that composed string quartets. There's something wounded about it. I don't know why I like it, but there is something powerful about the piece. 

I imagine it being like a musical heart attack. There's a panic to it. I think the piece is meant to make you uncomfortable. 

Forgive me if I sound a tad juvenile in my explanations, but that's the only way I know to describe it.


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## KenOC

SalieriIsInnocent said:


> I imagine it being like a musical heart attack. There's a panic to it. I think the piece is meant to make you uncomfortable.


Well, all music can be to any listener is exactly what it sounds like it is, at that point in time or life. But working backward to "composer's intention" can be a dangerous thing.


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## Fugue Meister

Mahlerian said:


> Closer to the bold. Anyone who calls Schoenberg an "evil man" who "invented atonality because he felt tonality was exhausted" is a crackpot who deserves no attention whatsoever.
> 
> His emphasis on intervals is so incredibly tedious and tendentious that I wonder how many lay listeners would actually take much away from his lecture if they didn't already understand:
> 1 - What a fugue is
> and
> 2 - What an interval is


Fair enough Mahlerian. Out of curiosity did you find any part of it intriguing or did you shut it down after the blasphemes about Schoenberg? Not that I'm defending, I'm merely wondering what you make of the thesis he maintains of both the themes of the double fugue coming to terms with each other by the pieces finish and coalescing into a more cohesive whole?


----------



## Mahlerian

Well, I got through the rest of it, despite being constantly irritated by all of the editing problems (especially the "inserts" he recorded after the fact, which don't match up well at all). And what's up with the ending of the piece being repeated three times (the first one of which is cut off, moving back several pages)?

He's right insofar as Beethoven does take his fugue subjects and show them in many possible ways, and the connections he points out are certainly there, but if there's one thing that really bugs me (besides the annoying and factually wrong potshots at Schoenberg and Boulez), it's that he doesn't even mention the connections between the Grosse Fuge and the rest of Op. 130, and there are a few. The piece was conceived as the grand finale to a large scale work, like those to the Ninth Symphony and the Hammerklavier Sonata (the Ninth Symphony's main subsidiary key is B-flat, and the Hammerklavier is in the key of B-flat).

Incidentally, Bruckner's Symphony No. 5, which has a double fugue in its own finale (and some other nods to Beethoven's Ninth), is also in B-flat, as is Mendelssohn's Lobgesang, which I think has a fugue in it somewhere...


----------



## Fugue Meister

Well thanks for taking the time to choke it down as it were. I'm something of a dilettante when it comes to music. As such, I didn't know what to think of it other than to just be glad to find some sort of analysis that in depth. When it comes to musical analysis there is not much on youtube I can find other than a few masterclasses and some college lectures. Don't get me wrong I love youtube because of how many new composers I've come across yet I want more discussions of the works by musicians and scholars of music. This is why I took the time. 

Anyway thanks for giving me a second opinion. I'm curious; are you a musician yourself or rather (I don't want to say let me see your credentials but) how did you become so knowledgable of these things? You seem to be very well versed on these matters of music.


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## Fugue Meister

Now I've seen that this has been brought up before in another thread Mahlerian...

http://www.talkclassical.com/32147-beehovens-grosse-fuge-explained.html

Sorry..


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## Mahlerian

Fugue Meister said:


> Now I've seen that this has been brought up before in another thread Mahlerian...
> 
> http://www.talkclassical.com/32147-beehovens-grosse-fuge-explained.html
> 
> Sorry..


Yeah, but this time I actually did bother to listen to it, so my comments from then are less relevant than these ones.

I understand that hearing something explained is a good thing. If you learn something, that's great! I have no problem with using whatever means works for you personally. I just worry that some of the information might be presented in such a way as to make others turn away because the discussion is "too technical", when that part could be cut and the content would be the same.


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## SalieriIsInnocent

The first time I listened to it was after hearing people talk about how terrible it is. I had to hear this "bad" Beethoven composition. I don't hear anything bad about it. Of course, maybe my recording of it was played better. When the Cleveland Quartet plays it, I enjoy it quite a bit.


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## hpowders

I am on temporary hiatus from Beethoven for the time being but the Grosse Fugue, Hammerklavier Sonata, a minor string quartet and Diabelli Variations will be the works I play when I return.

"Grosse what?" Ha! Ha! Very funny!!!


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## shangoyal

I think there is in this piece a few attributes that make it essentially Beethovenian. Every composer has certain pieces which are their trademark - and Beethoven's Grosse Fuge is one of his. I like the whole string quartet, Op 130 very much.


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## SalieriIsInnocent

shangoyal said:


> I think there is in this piece a few attributes that make it essentially Beethovenian. Every composer has certain pieces which are their trademark - and Beethoven's Grosse Fuge is one of his. I like the whole string quartet, Op 130 very much.


I agree with that 100%. There's something about the way Mozart composes that you almost always know it's Mozart, unless somebody is trying to sound like Mozart. Beethoven is the same. The Grosse Fugue is really no different than many of his other works. I even hear similarities to his sonatas.


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## Forte

One of the greatest fugues and string quartet movements. Super ahead of the time and super intense music in general. I go to it every time I look for a listening challenge (e.g. spotting something in a composition I'd never noticed before).


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## Mandryka

. 

One problem is that it's too agressive - I mean what's the point of all that blustering fury? And it's hard to see how such fast and furious music makes any sense in op 130. This could be a case of poor performance - musicians are often too fast in music that's hard to play. Anyway, for me the Tokyo Quartet was a revelation with it, because it's such a noble elegant refined poised performance. 

Even more revealing was the fortepiano recording of op 134, Beethoven' transcription for 4 hands , with Cullan Bryant. The latter especially brings out a balanced nobility in the music which I find really special - and which would indeed fit well with the spirit of op 130. 


The writing may be just too dense for quartet. One version I like is for string orchestra, the one which Furtwangler played - one of the two recordings he made, can't remember which, is exceptional.


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## Fugue Meister

SalieriIsInnocent said:


> I agree with that 100%. There's something about the way Mozart composes that you almost always know it's Mozart, unless somebody is trying to sound like Mozart. Beethoven is the same. The Grosse Fugue is really no different than many of his other works. I even hear similarities to his sonatas.


This is precisely how I feel. The more you listen to a composers work, if there a good composer, you can hear their musical fingerprints on the music. I can tell you several times I've been able to guess correctly at a piece playing on NPR, and sure enough it turns out to be who I thought it was.

I will say I believe the grosse fuge to be most jarring and turbulent composition, but I still hear the fingerprints.


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## PetrB

zOMG another nutter and vanity production No. 98, 638, 196a.

I had to shut if off within a minute and a half.

I think the piece itself is one of the ugliest ever written to remain in the rep and be so highly lauded. (The other contender also Beethoven, _Hammerklavier Sonata._) The interior struggle of the Beethoven who could write contrapuntal music more than well being constantly at odds with the Beethoven whose native impulse, and greatest personal joy, is working with vertical harmony -- it is a spectacular and bloody thing to hear, this composer beating himself up like two boxers in the ring, bits of flesh flying, droplets of blood spraying. It is a war of two very different musical procedures, I don't think anyone wins, and maybe that was his actual intent.

I think it is a spectacular fail, and a spectacularly interesting one. But I am one who has never much been interested in that element of Beethoven where you hear him wrestling so hard with the very materials of music -- hack hack hack, shape shape shape, struggle struggle struggle; high drama, sentimentalized and transliterated (that pretty much by others after the composer's death) into being about the composer's personal life struggles. Boo-hoo.

It needs no explanation of two hours in length, no matter how accurate or thorough the analysis.

So... how about that stunning double fugue traveling and rolling around through the full chorus and orchestra in the middle movement of Stravinsky's _Symphony of Psalms_, eh? Now THERE is a spectacular fugue


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## Blancrocher

PetrB said:


> So... how about that stunning double fugue traveling and rolling around through the full chorus and orchestra in the middle movement of Stravinsky's _Symphony of Psalms_, eh? Now THERE is a spectacular fugue


I wouldn't feel the need myself to choose between these two incomparable masterpieces. I'd just point out that the "great fugue" seems to have been on Stravinsky's short list of favorite works ever composed. He apparently spun it endlessly on his gramophone in the 20s and 30s (when it wasn't so venerated as it is now), and later in life called it "an absolutely contemporary piece of music that will be contemporary forever." He even ordered a death mask of Beethoven!

None of this is relevant to one's liking the piece, of course--this is just by the way.


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## PetrB

Blancrocher said:


> I wouldn't feel the need myself to choose between these two incomparable masterpieces. I'd just point out that the "great fugue" seems to have been on Stravinsky's short list of favorite works ever composed. He apparently spun it endlessly on his gramophone in the 20s and 30s (when it wasn't so venerated as it is now), and later in life called it "an absolutely contemporary piece of music that will be contemporary forever." He even ordered a death mask of Beethoven!
> 
> None of this is relevant to one's liking the piece, of course--this is just by the way.


The Beethoven is, as I said spectacular. Of course, with an intended struggle inherent in the work, music at war with itself, you would have to be out of your mind to expect that to sound what we conventionally call "beautiful." It is powerful, and ugly, and I think Igor was right, it is radically "modern," too.

Still, my preference and lack of liking is about that struggle in Beethoven element (I'm sure I was thrilled with it when younger -- epic, ya know  though I do like other music where there is a supreme tension and some other battle going on.

I find it both amusing and heartening that a piece so not popular, hummable, pretty, etc. gets the status it does. The premiere had a number of people walking out when that movement started! But the thing _is_ ugly sounding, lol.


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## Ukko

^ ^ Ugly it is, at least in the beginning of the fugue. But it's sort of like Lincoln in the Memorial, for me; after a couple minutes it ain't ugly anymore, and neither is he.


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## KenOC

PetrB said:


> ...The premiere had a number of people walking out when that movement started! But the thing _is_ ugly sounding, lol.


I wouldn't be surprised, but I've never read that. Do you have a reference or source that you can easily remember?


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## Bradius

Watched it for the first time on YouTube last night. Alban Berg Quartet. I thought it was fantastic. Very powerful. I don't 'get it' all just yet. But it is promising. I like it!


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## Richannes Wrahms

I seem to be unable to avoid thinking about it as some sort of parody or musical joke. Each entrance gives me a sort of nervous compulsion as if, for an instant, the horrid nightmare of being transmuted into Glenn Gould became true. After that passes, it becomes hypnotic, I am trapped in its own perverted aesthetic dimension and find myself empty but looking for more when it finally ends.


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## Conky

The Grosse Fuge, to me, is proof that something can be beautiful without being pretty. I don't understand all the people that don't get it, or who say they like it for different reasons than they like other music - I'm a complete newbie to classical music (only been listening about 4 years), and I feel that I "get it" well enough, but maybe I'm just deluding myself.


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## hpowders

It truly Grosses me out. Very aptly named.


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## Steber

How do you begin to consider a piece of this magnitude. Complex, exhaustive, intense, anticipatory, the Grosse fuge seems to be an unfathomable piece, standing alone in the catalogue of Beethoven's works and yet a movement of a quartet which explores contrast. A piece which seems to follow a principle which appears evident in Beethoven's late works, that of maximum freedom within the order of form. The fugue appears to strain the limits of its thematic material demonstrating the possibilities of its chromatic subject and displaying high contrast in its transformations. Yet at once it preserves integration by keeping within the constraints of form while pressing these constraints. The piece has a sound which is entirely in keeping with the contrast and transformation principle which it explores. It is intense, straining tonality, giving forceful, violent expression in its musicality. Anticipatory, as is so much of Beethoven, when seen in the context of musical history, particularly when viewed alongside the twentieth century's abandonment of tonality. Perhaps Beethoven was trying to demonstrate the limits of music, exploring all possible facets of the thematic material in an exhaustive essay. Beethoven obviously appreciated 'albeit grudgingly' the controversial nature of the piece amongst the audience of his day. The writing of the lighter charactered Rondo replacing this fugue as the end of the Quartet Op 130 demonstrates his concerns. This piece will remain controversial, possibly shocking on the first hearing. But this is late Beethoven, music which will remain unprecedented.


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## Nevohteeb

*The Grosse Fugue*

The person who called this great work, gross, doesn't know German. Grosse (Grobe) means Great. It is a very large, very complicated fugue. Listen to the Shostakovich Quartets, then go back to this work. It might help.


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## Serge

Just to put things in perspective, Bach came up with something very similar first.


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## Amusicman

One of my favorites, a masterpiece


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## Lukecash12

Serge said:


> Just to put things in perspective, Bach came up with something very similar first.


Bach was way ahead of his time tonally.


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## KenOC

Lukecash12 said:


> Bach was way ahead of his time tonally.


Still, I'd like to know the name of the piece that Bach wrote that was "similar" to the Grosse Fuge.


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## DiesIraeCX

I personally am a huge fan of the work, I'd just reiterate what others have already written, plus the Stravinsky quote, _"an absolutely contemporary piece of music that will be contemporary forever."_, that statement is pretty spot on. So many people have the same averse reaction to modern music ("dissonant", "atonal", "12-tone", "serial" whatever you wanna say) as they do to Beethoven's _Große Fuge_ written by someone born in 1770! I'll always hold Beethoven as my favorite because of his revolutionary and innovative spirit.

I definitely don't understand the _Große Fuge_ yet, but I find it a joy to listen to even though it may not be "pretty". It's still beautiful! As someone else pointed out, after the first few minutes, you adjust to the bizarre-ness.


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## Cheyenne

I still really like it, but I must listen to it as a quasi-meditative experience -- and it works better after I've perused some of his other Late String quartets.


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## Serge

KenOC said:


> Still, I'd like to know the name of the piece that Bach wrote that was "similar" to the Grosse Fuge.


Apparently, it's called Gigue. I posted the piece ages ago in this very thread. But here it is again:
View attachment JSB - Gigue.mp3


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## Rhombic

I have thought for about a minute whether to unearth this antique thread or not to do so, but, because of its current length and being exactly what I was looking for... well.

This masterpiece is one of Beethoven's most enigmatic compositions, verging on a strange style of composition which he (Beethoven) said that it was "for the future". Despite listening to it occasionally, I still do not fully comprehend what he is trying to convey. It almost seems like it hides a secret message in a complex way that is virtually undecipherable. It is not on my playlist because of the same reasons, however, I will not refuse to listen to it in good company.


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## MoonlightSonata

I simply _adore_ the Grosse Fuge. I still remember the first time I listened to it. I was enthralled.


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## Albert7

Watched the Grosse Fuge with the Alban Berg Quartet. So moving to me.


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## Triplets

Cheyenne said:


> I still really like it, but I must listen to it as a quasi-meditative experience -- and it works better after I've perused some of his other Late String quartets.


It also works better after a nice glass of Cabernet...


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## Triplets

albertfallickwang said:


> Watched the Grosse Fuge with the Alban Berg Quartet. So moving to me.


 I find listening to it to be even more moving.


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## GKC

It's hard for me to get thru the week without hearing a Beethoven quartet, esp. the middle and late ones, but I simply do not like opus 133; have listened to it several times (Alban Berg, Tokyo, Quartetto Italiano, etc.). Will keep trying though.

(Hey: I see that I'm no longer "Jr.")


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## wolfango

The Grosse Fugue makes much sense as the last movement of the quartet Op. 130. Beethoven works were coherent from beginning to end. The Fugue of the Hammerklavier would have "no sense" if it were isolated of what had happened during the previous movements.


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## Mandryka

wolfango said:


> The Grosse Fugue makes much sense as the last movement of the quartet Op. 130. Beethoven works were coherent from beginning to end. The Fugue of the Hammerklavier would have "no sense" if it were isolated of what had happened during the previous movements.


How does it make sense, to follow the cavatina with the fugue? It just sounds like a totally random move to me.


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## KenOC

Mandryka said:


> How does it make sense, to follow the cavatina with the fugue? It just sounds like a totally random move to me.


There are structural links to the Cavatina (and earlier movements) in the Grosse Fuge. Whether it makes any deeper musical sense as a finale is still an open question -- even the most revered authorities can't seem to agree! Myself, I can take the Op. 130 with either finale and choose one or the other each time I listen. YMMV!


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## Mandryka

Well I was thinking about emotional randomness and audible similarities, not some sort of geeky analytic connection, which noone can really hear anyway, but it does make me wonder whether there's any shared ideas between the earlier movements and the rondo.


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## hpowders

OP: It all depends on how you define "Grosse".


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## tabmo

For starters GF contains the most beautiful theme ever written. Period. You know which one. It is actually in the climax of the piece and all those minutes of unimaginable struggle are there only to highlight it - The Holy Grail of Beethoven. The ultimate prayer for humanity.

This theme/motif is his ultimate musical idea - it is actually a variant of Ode of Joy theme, another variant is in Missa Solemnis. You can read about it (and look at the sketches) in the book of Kerman (as I remember). It is perfectly crafted on micro level, combined from descending half-steps and steps ('crying seconds') and pairs of repeated notes which themselves then move in waves by 4 up and down.

There were many of other idées fixes in Beethoven's late music. You hear them all the time in quartets.

As for fugue parts ask yourself - how do you 'understand' Xenakis' Psappha, for example? Or Bartok 4th? This is 'physical', 'moving', 'body' music that moves you into brain trance not dissimilar to what happens on parties with contemporary electronic music if you allow to be moved and release your breakes.

I consider myself happy that I got this piece. Emotionally, yes. I cry every time I hear it.


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## andrewsmolich1

The grosse fuge was one of the first pieces that got me really interested in classical music. Even now, after listening to it hundreds of times, I wouldn't say I 'get it' in a music theory sense, but listening to it continues to be an extremely rewarding experience. I just love the feel of it.


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## Richannes Wrahms

I'm not surprised Stravinsky liked it, the counterpoint seems as rudimentary as his own with that tendency to fall into repetition and sequence of scale patterns.


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## DiesIraeCX

Wrahms is unimpressed, what else is new?

*Yawn*


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## SeptimalTritone

Richannes Wrahms said:


> I'm not surprised Stravinsky liked it, the counterpoint seems as rudimentary as his own with that tendency to fall into *repetition and sequence of scale patterns.*


I do not at all understand what you are talking about.

Obvious scales and sequences:









Fugal entry beginning, followed by lots of sequential upward or downward motion with suspension chains:










More rudimentary stepwise sequential stuff:










Even more stepwise sequential suspension chains:


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## Richannes Wrahms

The Mozart example seems pretty out of place in what is being discusse (i.e. a piece supposed to be a great fugue).

Oh yes, there is an overabundance of primitive counterpoint filler in the literature. It is quite intuitive and effective to keep the rhythm going and fill in the texture. But some do better than others in terms of _building out of and transforming the thematic material_, _independence and completeness of the individual polyphonic voices_, building of chords and progressions by individual lines (the other way usually suppresses the potential of the individual melodies), etc.

To find a contrapuntal work that completely avoids unremarkable filling (and the whole idea of secondary parts [see Schoenberg is Dead]) you practically have to jump to the 1950's.


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## KenOC

The final movement, titled "Grosse Fugue," is a screeching discordant assault on the ears and utterly without musical merit. The whole affair sounds like an inebriated Moroccan street band. It is known that Herr Beethoven likes his cups, and perhaps too well; for mere deafness could hardly account for this ugly cacophony.

(from an imaginary 1826 review)


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## SeptimalTritone

Richannes Wrahms said:


> The Mozart example seems pretty out of place in what is being discusse (i.e. a piece supposed to be a great fugue).
> 
> Oh yes, there is an overabundance of primitive counterpoint filler in the literature.


Fine, the Mozart is a bad example.

But there's a lot of contrapuntal stuff in Bach/Haydn/Handel/Mozart whatever that's sequential. In fact, my "Counterpoint in the Style of Bach Book" literally tells me that after the initial fugual subject and countersubject stuff, you are supposed to write a bunch of modulating sequences to contrast with the stable episodes etc.

Or reading about classical style sonata development sections, modulating sequences with circle of fifths or descending thirds progressions are really common.

What's wrong with slow paced measure-by-measure linear stepwise sequential motion?


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## Kjetil Heggelund

My favorite Beethoven are the late quartets, but Grosse Fuge is just too noisy...and I like metal


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## Richannes Wrahms

SeptimalTritone said:


> What's wrong with slow paced measure-by-measure linear stepwise sequential motion?


There's a thread about that


----------



## chesapeake bay

I love The Grosse Fugue but if you are having trouble following what its doing try op 134 the version for 4 hand piano, its a little easier to hear whats going on at times. This is a pretty good version of it.


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## SeptimalTritone

Richannes Wrahms said:


> There's a thread about that


The Tchaikovsky example Mahlerian gave is quite bad, especially because it's literal sequence rather than tonal sequence, and it's therefore too aimless. It's also really slowly paced. I.e. the same melody literally repeated upwards with no harmonic goal, and it could end anywhere.

And yes, Vivaldi's circle of fifths sequences are quite bad too, and they are tonal rather than literal and they are still bad.

But the Grosse Fugue is just not even remotely comparable in repetitious poverty to that Tchaikovsky example.


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## tdc

Richannes Wrahms said:


> *To find a contrapuntal work that completely avoids unremarkable filling* (and the whole idea of secondary parts [see Schoenberg is Dead]) you practically have to jump to the 1950's.


Could you provide an example of such a piece?

Just curious as to your perceptions of these concepts, nothing more.


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## Richannes Wrahms

Earlier in Webern we find pieces that avoid direct scales due to being composed out of gestures. Then there's pointillistic pieces like Punkte which is really the same kind of construct as Webern. Then there's pieces that form melodies out of linked gestures such as Le Marteau. Though this is perhaps cheating in some way, some may find the gestures unremarkable whithin themselves and they can also be sequenced in a primitive manner.


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## EarthBoundRules

The Grosse Fuge is one of the most dissonant pieces that I actually enjoy, probably because it's Beethoven. The last few minutes always have me on the edge of my seat.


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## adtsang

Here's a performance of Beethoven's four-hand piano version on a period fortepiano made only three years after Beethoven's death. Certainly more percussive than the muddier sound the modern grand has.


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## Mandryka

adtsang said:


> Here's a performance of Beethoven's four-hand piano version on a period fortepiano made only three years after Beethoven's death. Certainly more percussive than the muddier sound the modern grand has.


This is the same as their recording. It's interesting the way they avoid anger, agression. I like it very much.


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## Friendlyneighbourhood

The greatest thing Beethoven EVER wrote, period!


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## hpowders

Friendlyneighbourhood said:


> The greatest thing Beethoven EVER wrote, period!


Yes. That's an astonishing piece, but when I listen to the Hammerklavier Sonata....wow!


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## starthrower

I prefer the piano music. I've never been able to fall in love with Beethoven's string quartets.


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## Friendlyneighbourhood

hpowders said:


> Yes. That's an astonishing piece, but when I listen to the Hammerklavier Sonata....wow!


Also very closely behind. Two very great works!!


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## Friendlyneighbourhood

starthrower said:


> I prefer the piano music. I've never been able to fall in love with Beethoven's string quartets.


Apart from the Grosso, I tend to agree


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## Pugg

One of my favorite pieces of music


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## bestellen

At first I didn't "like" the GF it but I found it very interesting. The second or third time I listened to it I started to "understand" what was going on.


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## Razumovskymas

I think the Grosse Fuge is a brilliant piece of music.

For some people music is simple: If they like what they hear they think its good music. 

For me (and I think for lots of other people) music is a bit more complicated than that and even too complicated to express in words. 

What Weston (some posts above me) says about the feeling of "the piece being almost within ones grasp" for me is one of the most wonderful things in music. The feeling that you know the piece is slowly revealing it's beauty. 

The first time I heard the Grosse Fugue I thought: Van B. must be joking here or he was completely deaf when he wrote it or something. But when you listen to it enough, something really starts to slowly seep through and it starts to make sense somehow.

Apart from all that it's a bit of a mystery why he didn't compose more of this kind of music. I only find the same kind of feel in the last movement of the Hammerklavier sonata. First time I heard that I thought: what a poor attempt of emulating Bach. But as with the Grosse fuge, it slowly seeps through.

Music isn't just for fun, sometimes it's just suffering and enduring pain, like life itself


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## Omicron9

My opinion: with the Große Fuge, Beethoven predicted or set the course for 20th-century chamber works. This is arguably the most modern and forward-looking composition of the 19th century. It still sounds modern even today. 

Note that I said "my opinion," and "arguably." 

-09


----------



## Mandryka

Omicron9 said:


> My opinion: with the Große Fuge, Beethoven predicted or set the course for 20th-century chamber works. This is arguably the most modern and forward-looking composition of the 19th century. It still sounds modern even today.
> 
> Note that I said "my opinion," and "arguably."
> 
> -09


It doesn't sound modern to me, but it does sound dissonant and contrapuntal, which sets it apart from a lot of 18th and 19th century music. As far as its influence goes, I note that the avant garde in the 20th century didn't really focus much on fugues.

Arditti quartet programmed it and even recorded it, but that was really to sell recordings and tickets, rather than because of any ideas about its modernity.

http://www.musicweb-international.com/SandH/2009/Jul-Dec09/arditti_interview2009.htm


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## Larkenfield

The _Große Fuge_? Sorry, but I am not a fan and I greatly dislike the strident and unmusical way it's usually played: grinding it out, sounding so unrelentingly redundant, loud and grotesque. Nor does it sound particularly healthy of body and mind for Beethoven, as if he was deaf a day longer than he could possibly endure. Nor has it ever struck me as being "modern," an idea which Stravinsky promoted, except perhaps modern in the sense of being an expression of the obsessive and abnormal, with some moments of calm, peace, and repose.

Sorry, I can't be more complementary, and apologies to those who like it, though he still remains as one of my all-time favorites. But I do believe there were times when he was exasperated beyond all measure and suffered from his emotional isolation and deafness-that it may have gotten to him and it came out in some of his music. The _Große Fuge_ will never be on my playlist, and I believe he made the right decision to drop it from his _Quartet No. 13 in B♭ major_.


----------



## Manxfeeder

Did I respond to this one already back in '08? If not, I still think it's the bee's knees. Especially the part where they are all playing different rhythms at the same time, like it's about to split apart at the seams but doesn't.


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## MusicSybarite

I don't hear anything bad from this towering piece. It's a revolutionary work itself, absolutely magnificent, pure gold! It's Beethoven in his most dense and passionate facet. If people dislike it, listen to lullabies instead zZzZz.


----------



## SalieriIsInnocent

It's a piece I return to often. I think it truly depends on the performance. It's an uncomfortable piece, but that might be why I like it.


----------



## Mandryka

Is it unique in Beethoven? He wrote lots of fugues obviously but this one seems to elicit very strong views because of its violence maybe, or maybe because of something else, and I wonder if that's really a blip, as it were, in Beethoven's thinking, or something fundamental, just more obvious here, or what.


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## Quartetfore

As I posted a number of years ago--I will pass on the fugue. But, do think that the movement that Beethoven composed to replace it is the weakest of any in the "last Quartets. This great work deserves a fitting finale. If not the "fugue at least something a long the line of the last movement of Op.127


----------



## Ras

Grosse Fuge in its original form as a movement for string quartet is not for me (yet).
But I do like to hear it in *orchestral arrangements*.
There is a good one with *Klemperer and one with Karajan* too.

Klemperer 10 cd Beethoven box is still decently priced:
https://www.amazon.com/Otto-Klemper...528451225&sr=1-1&keywords=klemperer+beethoven

I have the Karajan in this box which was cheap when I bought it:
https://www.amazon.com/Beethoven-13...1528451124&sr=1-71&keywords=karajan+beethoven


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## Eva Yojimbo

One of my favorites. What I find odd about Beethoven's quartets is that they mostly leave me cold outside of the Grosse Fugue and the Adagio from Quartet 15; the former being Beethoven's harshest composition, the latter being arguably his most beautiful. I guess I like my Beethoven at the tonal extremes! 

The Grosse Fugue also has the dubious distinction of being the only piece of classical music that, during my teenage years, provoked my mom to burst into my room with a "what the hell is that noise you're listening to?" I responded "Beethoven" and she was quite incredulous!


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## GrotesqueFugue

So I'm late to the party - wondered why I couldn't vote and realised the thread has been going 10 years - but having registered fairly recently I'm still working my through lots of bits of the forum.

The Große Fuge is unequivocally my favourite piece of music - others come close, but if I could only choose one it would be this. I'll add the caveat that I'm very particular about the recordings of it though, as there are some that are an atrocious mess and some that manage to coax the most sublime and awe-inspiring musicality from it. I'd take the Emerson Quartet's recording as first choice. Whether it's an honest portrayal of Beethoven's intent I couldn't say, but it strikes an exqusite balance between anger, confusion and beauty. 
I'm not saying it's the most profound or groundbreaking contribution in the history of music, but it really does something for me


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## endelbendel

It is a grail Q, and perfect. Is it not that one is 'gotten' by the music?


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## Merl

It's not one of my favourite Beethoven pieces but I do love it. I remember thinking 'Wtf!' when I first heard it because it was so challenging in comparison to much of LvB's output. Over time I've enjoyed it more and more. I would say that only top-drawer performances make it sound right. Anything other than excellence and it sounds like a car crash.


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## lachlan1415

Just because it doesn't make sense for you, it doesn't mean that it doesn't make sense for everyone else. It is not the most beautiful piece in the world but I think it is great because of the context of the piece. Beethoven who was fully deaf by that time created a massive double fugue that is harmonically on point. It also does have a melody. After the introduction you are first given the first melody of the song, after that melody it gives you the second melody instantly. After that it's just a fugue of those 2 melodies. It took me about a week of constant listening to understand the piece but after I finally broke the ice I finally realised that the grosse fugue is not a beautiful piece of music but a work of genius.


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## Marcsid

The first time I heard it it was noice, I was just starting to listen classical (I am a teenager with no musical education) some time after I came back and I loved it, it was just amazing, the counterpoint the harmony, it was wild but wild in a good way, What I didnt know its that I was listening to a HORRIBLE performance, technically ok but no soul, since it was the only performance I had ever heard at the time i thought it was the way it should be played, I kinda left it aside for some time because I tend to let Beethovens late quartets for times when I can be relaxed and pay really close attention to the music, and the grosse fugue was not my favourite quartet.
Then I got introduced to an actual performance, Takacs quartet, and I swear the strength and the emotion of that performance made the music shine and I was absolutely shocked, the first fugato is relentless, like a non-stop crecendo, by itself absolutely amazing, the slow part is nice but its really overshadowed by the two gargantuan fugues, the second (and maybe third, I am still not sure if that should be counted as a separated fugal part or just a continuation) fugato is just... Indescriptible, like its one of the most amazing musical moments ever, I am not even close to understand the harmony there, but it just feels amazing man, not in a matematical way like other people here say but its just emotionally sublime.
The final part is also pretty nice, the piece has to end and after that enormous fugue its hard to think a way out, so I think beethoven made it intentonally confusing, random entrances of the theme, changing moods and a nice little coda, if beethoven had made it too predictable I feel that it wouldnt have worked because of the shadow of that glorious fugue.
Idk thats my opinion.


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## ORigel

Marcsid said:


> The first time I heard it it was noice, I was just starting to listen classical (I am a teenager with no musical education) some time after I came back and I loved it, it was just amazing, the counterpoint the harmony, it was wild but wild in a good way, What I didnt know its that I was listening to a HORRIBLE performance, technically ok but no soul, since it was the only performance I had ever heard at the time i thought it was the way it should be played, I kinda left it aside for some time because I tend to let Beethovens late quartets for times when I can be relaxed and pay really close attention to the music, and the grosse fugue was not my favourite quartet.
> Then I got introduced to an actual performance, Takacs quartet, and I swear the strength and the emotion of that performance made the music shine and I was absolutely shocked, the first fugato is relentless, like a non-stop crecendo, by itself absolutely amazing, the slow part is nice but its really overshadowed by the two gargantuan fugues, the second (and maybe third, I am still not sure if that should be counted as a separated fugal part or just a continuation) fugato is just... Indescriptible, like its one of the most amazing musical moments ever, I am not even close to understand the harmony there, but it just feels amazing man, not in a matematical way like other people here say but its just emotionally sublime.
> The final part is also pretty nice, the piece has to end and after that enormous fugue its hard to think a way out, so I think beethoven made it intentonally confusing, random entrances of the theme, changing moods and a nice little coda, if beethoven had made it too predictable I feel that it wouldnt have worked because of the shadow of that glorious fugue.
> Idk thats my opinion.


That's much like _my_ experience. The Grosse Fuge was my gateway to the late quartets, and to an extent chamber music in general.

The Grosse Fuge does not seem "confusing" to me, except in one part:

1. Intro
2. Violent Fugue
3. Interval of calm
4. Victory dance...
5. Is premature. More violence
6. In a passage, the violence is tiring itself out.
7. Victory dance
8. Now much like the finale of a Romantic era symphony, earlier themes are brought back, but in a conciliatory way.
9. False recapitulation. He makes you THINK he is about to go through the themes again, but cuts it short.
10. Both themes heard together in a beautiful passage

So it is like a darkness-to-light symphony, rather like his Symphony No. 5.

Indeed, you can group it into four "movements." The third is contained inside the fourth.
1-2 First Movement
3 Second Movement
5-6 Third Movement
4, 7-10 Fourth Movement


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## RogerWaters

nefigah said:


> Beethoven's infamous work, sure to incite quite the diverse range of opinions.
> 
> Where do you stand?


What a strange set of options. Where's the option in between declaring this to be Among one's favourite bits of music and it "not being on" one's playlist?


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## Varick

Usually when I use the term, "I don't get it" I am usually saying that I don't get the appeal that others find in the piece of music. I understand music, having a degree in music and having studied it for decades. I hear from many people when I say I don't like a particular piece or genre of music, "That's because you don't get it." Oh, I "get it," I could deconstruct it for you, but I don't understand other's enjoyment of it.

Beethoven's Grosse Fugue is certainly one of those pieces I don't understand the appeal of. To me, it is an ugly piece of music. I love much of Beethoven, and he certainly was one of the greatest composers of all time, but no one bats 1000.

V


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## Waehnen

Please describe what it is about the Grosse Fugue that you find appealing and enjoyable to listen to. At the moment, I dislike it. 

At least in the Hammerklavier Sonata Finale Fugue the different voices are so well articulated, especially with the piano attack, that I always know what is going on. But the grosse fugue strings blend together so that in the galloping fortissimos it just sounds bad and undefined -- unnecessary even. Of course I could listen to it as "modern music", take it as it is, forget my expectations and not require the Beethoven qualities of it.

Any tips at all?


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## Eva Yojimbo

Waehnen said:


> Please describe what it is about the Grosse Fugue that you find appealing and enjoyable to listen to. At the moment, I dislike it.


I like it precisely because it's NOT appealing and (in a sense) NOT enjoyable. Its harsh dissonances are the polar opposite of the aesthetic paradigms of harmonious beauty that flourished almost since the dawn of western music; yet that harshness is governed by a quite rigorously logical form and harmony, so there is a "method to the madness," so to speak. This combination of harsh aesthetics backed by rather rigorous formal/harmonic designs would become a staple of the more avant-garde and progressive 20th century classical music, and regardless of what you think about 20th century classical music it's amazing to think how ahead of his time Beethoven was. As Stravinsky said, it's a piece that will be eternally contemporary. In a very distant way it kinda reminds me of what I enjoy about the music of Meshuggah: that combination of incredibly harsh surface aesthetics supported by some fascinating, left-brained musicality. I used to describe listening to Meshuggah as trying to do calculus while under heavy enemy fire. The Grosse Fugue isn't quite that extreme, but it's in the same realm.


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## Waehnen

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I like it precisely because it's NOT appealing and (in a sense) NOT enjoyable. Its harsh dissonances are the polar opposite of the aesthetic paradigms of harmonious beauty that flourished almost since the dawn of western music; yet that harshness is governed by a quite rigorously logical form and harmony, so there is a "method to the madness," so to speak. This combination of harsh aesthetics backed by rather rigorous formal/harmonic designs would become a staple of the more avant-garde and progressive 20th century classical music, and regardless of what you think about 20th century classical music it's amazing to think how ahead of his time Beethoven was. As Stravinsky said, it's a piece that will be eternally contemporary. In a very distant way it kinda reminds me of what I enjoy about the music of Meshuggah: that combination of incredibly harsh surface aesthetics supported by some fascinating, left-brained musicality. I used to describe listening to Meshuggah as trying to do calculus while under heavy enemy fire. The Grosse Fugue isn't quite that extreme, but it's in the same realm.


As a composer, I am amazed that there are listeners like you who actually do not mind if the left brain sometimes takes over in the music. Maybe I have criticized myself and other composers for such moments too much. I have emphasized ”meaningful expression” over the ”ego centered technics”. Maybe I have underestimated everyone?

Edit: Maybe part of my problem has again been the Alban Berg Quartet. My other record is by Amadeus Quartet and this actually sounds nice and I am able to distinguish the voices. What good is a fugue if everything blends into a single forced and piercing string sound?


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## Eva Yojimbo

Waehnen said:


> As a composer, I am amazed that there are listeners like you who actually do not mind if the left brain sometimes takes over in the music. Maybe I have criticized myself and other composers for such moments too much. I have emphasized ”meaningful expression” over the ”ego centered technics”. Maybe I have underestimated everyone?
> 
> Edit: Maybe part of my problem has again been the Alban Berg Quartet. My other record is by Amadeus Quartet and this actually sounds nice and I am able to distinguish the voices. What good is a fugue if everything blends into a single forced and piercing string sound?


To be clear, I don't think the appeal is just in the left-braininess, but the pairing of that with such a harsh superficial aesthetic. Some enjoy that harshness and the kind of drama and anxiety it creates--myself included. If it was JUST a dry, intellectual exercise I wouldn't find it nearly as enthralling. 

It could be the performance as well. I don't even remember what performers I've heard with it as it's a work I try not to revisit too much because I don't want it to become stale with overexposure. I don't know if I've heard Emerson do this piece but I tend to find they're quite good with clarifying such knotty works. Apparently it's fiendishly difficult to play, and probably even more difficult to get it all to cohere.


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## Merl

I stand by the comments I made 4 years ago on this thread but what I will say is finding the right recording is important. Have a listen on streaming. You've just made me realise that I haven't blogged the Grosse Fugue recordings. I think I'll have to remedy that. Shouldn't take me more than a few days as I have all my notes from previous recordings


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## Waehnen

Merl said:


> I stand by the comments I made 4 years ago on this thread but what I will say is finding the right recording is important. Have a listen on streaming. You've just made me realise that I haven't blogged the Grosse Fugue recordings. I think I'll have to remedy that. Shouldn't take me more than a few days as I have all my notes from previous recordings


Thanks, Merl! Your insightful blogs are much appreciated.


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## Kreisler jr

I think the really tough section is the first (after the "overtura" that presents the different forms of the theme). It's relentless, almost ff all the time and a bit too long. The "meno mosso e moderato section" is one of the most beautiful string quartet section I know, maybe also because of the contrast and the following mostly 6/8 is just boundless energy, exhilarating. It's not my absolute favorite (late quartet) Beethoven (I prefer op.131, 132 and find op.130 overall the strangest and most difficult) but "most invigorating" (Jeeves). The Emerson is probably very good, I don't have a clear memory of them. Of the ones I remember well, the Hagen (in the recording with op.130, they have another older one) do the best job of making the first section intense but not ugly; they are overall a favorite although I find them a bit too fast in the meno mosso.

Overall I find op.133 more varied than the op.106 finale. The latter doesn't have a section as tough as that first one but it is pretty relentless overall and seems also more cerebral whereas op.133 is just exhilarating energy.


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## Merl

The one thing I don't like are orchestral arrangements of the Grosse Fugue. I really dislike them (regardless of who is doing them). Tbh, I'm not keen on any orchestral versions of SQs. Don't shoot me, it's just a personal preference.


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## Kreisler jr

I have probably two string orchestral versions as fillers. Gielen did a rather interesting arrangement with "solo/tutti" contrasts and I think also "modern" techniques like col legno or "on the bridge" etc. I don't think the piece needs this and doesn't gain much, if anything. However, because it is a "big" piece with a "big sound" it seems a bit more justified than in the case of some other pieces. (I have a nostalgic fondness of Bernstein's op.131 with Vienna Phil, although not the op.135, the latter IMO a piece rather unsuited for orchestral blowup).


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## RobertJTh

Merl said:


> The one thing I don't like are orchestral arrangements of the Grosse Fugue. I really dislike them (regardless of who is doing them). Tbh, I'm not keen on any orchestral versions of SQs. Don't shoot me, it's just a personal preference.


It's a pity that we have no GF from the Busch Quartet - only an orchestral version by the Busch chamber players. The rest of their late Beethoven recordings are marvellous, it's just that one orchestral arrangement that sticks out like a sore thumb.


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## Kreisler jr

RobertJTh said:


> It's a pity that we have no GF from the Busch Quartet - only an orchestral version by the Busch chamber players. The rest of their late Beethoven recordings are marvellous, it's just that one orchestral arrangement that sticks out like a sore thumb.


The strange thing is that the Busch quartet did play the fugue in concerts. I assume that the difficult circumstances of recording (few alternate takes, almost no cuts/corrections, it was pre-tape, I believe) at that time and the war are to blame that they avoided the fugue for the recordings.


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## John O

Waehnen said:


> As a composer, I am amazed that there are listeners like you who actually do not mind if the left brain sometimes takes over in the music. Maybe I have criticized myself and other composers for such moments too much. I have emphasized ”meaningful expression” over the ”ego centered technics”. Maybe I have underestimated everyone?
> 
> Edit: Maybe part of my problem has again been the Alban Berg Quartet. My other record is by Amadeus Quartet and this actually sounds nice and I am able to distinguish the voices. What good is a fugue if everything blends into a single forced and piercing string sound?


Surely a lot of appreciation of music is subconscious mathematics anyway (is this what you mean by left brain?) .
Conscious awareness of what is going on often helps: form, structure, texture etc.: whether you read this in a book or concert notes or spot it yourself while listening or reading the score.
The problem is when you read the analysis of a work doesn't help you hear any better as with some total serial works etc.


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## Laraine Anne Barker

nefigah said:


> Beethoven's infamous work, sure to incite quite the diverse range of opinions.
> 
> Where do you stand?


I don't like it, but then I don't like Mozart's similar works, supposed to have been specially written for his wife.


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## hoodjem

Lang said:


> Well, it is one of my favourite pieces of music. I love it, and have loved it from the moment I first heard it.
> 
> If you were to ask me 'Why?' I probably couldn't tell you, apart from the fact that for me, Beethoven in his later years was writing music that I find absolutely transporting.


Yes. Beethoven's late music is often strange, bizarre, outlandish but beautiful, deep, moving profound, abstract, emotional, and--dare I say--still beyond our complete understanding.

It is certainly not simple and melodically hummable. It is music of the spheres, the heavens, the cosmos.


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## hoodjem

Elgarian said:


> I blew the dust off the Emersons' 'Late Quartets' today, inspired by this topic, and listened again. It's been years, and my memory has been too kind to the Grosse Fugue: I found it a lot more horrible than I remember it being. On a scale of -10 (hopelessly intolerable) to +10 (Heaven), where silence scores zero, it weighs in at about -4 or -5, that is, I find it quite a lot less attractive than silence. I suppose the general score for the quartets hovers at around -1 or -2.
> 
> So I neither like it, nor do I 'get' it - two quite separate statements (and I think maybe we need a special thread to pursue this 'getting' and 'liking' business further).


Alas! I feel sorry for you.
I despise the Emerson Quartet. They play almost everything as if they are late to making an appointment somewhere else, or they all just plugged their fingers into electric sockets right after ingesting a bottle of amphetamines.

Might I suggest late Beethoven quartet recordings by the Yale Quartet (Vanguard), the Vegh Quartet (Naive), the Lindsay Quartet (ASV), the Quartetto Italiano (Philips), or the Tokyo Quartet (RCA).
These recorded performances are taken at a much more reasonable pace and with more appropriate emotional and energy levels.


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