#op. 133

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Ludwig van Beethoven - Große Fuge, Op. 133 - Performed by the Artemis Qu...

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Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827).

The Grosse Fuge was published in 1827 as Op. 133. Originally a single-movement composition for string quartet - the massive double fugue was universally condemned by contemporary critics. It was composed when Beethoven was almost completely deaf. 

In recent years, Beethoven had become increasingly concerned with the challenge of integrating this Baroque form (Fuge), that was academic and highly formalised, with the expressive impulses of Romanticism. Beethoven wrote:

“In my student days I made dozens of [fugues]… but [imagination] also wishes to exert its privileges… and a new and really poetic element must be introduced into the traditional form,”  

The resulting movement was a mammoth work, longer than all the other movements of the quartet that it was attached to. Beethoven wrote at the top of the score, “Grande fugue tantôt libre, tantôt recherchée” (a grand fugue, sometimes free, sometimes learned), an indication of his ambition to reconcile the academic and the romantic.

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From Wikipedia: The 'Große Fuge' (or 'Grosse Fuge', also known in English as 'Great Fugue' or 'Grand Fugue'), Op. 133, is a single-movement composition for string quartet by Ludwig van Beethoven. A massive double fugue, it originally served as the final movement of his Quartet No. 13 in B♭ major (Op. 130) but he replaced the fugue with a new finale and published the Grosse Fuge separately in 1827 as Op. 133. It was composed in 1825, when Beethoven was completely deaf, and is considered to be part of his set of late quartets. It was first performed in 1826, as the finale of the B♭ quartet, by the Schuppanzigh Quartet.

The Große Fuge is famous for its extreme technical demands and its unrelentingly introspective nature,[1] even by the standards of his late period. It is the largest and most difficult of all of Beethoven's string quartet movements.[2]

Most 19th century critics dismissed the work. Daniel Gregory Mason called it "repellent",[3] a reviewer writing for Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung in 1826 described the fugue as "incomprehensible, like Chinese" and "a confusion of Babel".[4] However critical opinion of the work has risen steadily since the beginning of the 20th century. The work is now considered among Beethoven's greatest achievements. Igor Stravinsky said of it, "[it is] an absolutely contemporary piece of music that will be contemporary forever."[5]

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Ludwig van Beethoven, Große Fugue op. 133, performed on string quartet.

More of that classical music visualization goodness. I love fugues. Especially this one, but I can't possibly explain why.

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Manuscript of the Große Fuge arranged by Beethoven for piano, four hands.

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Beethoven's Große Fuge in Bb Major, op. 133. Performed by the Takács Quartet.