The Grosse Fuge (, also known in English as the Great Fugue or Grand Fugue), Op. 133, is a composition for string quartet by Ludwig van Beethoven. An immense double fugue, it was originally composed in 1825 as the concluding fifth movement of Beethoven's Quartet No. 13 in B major, Op. 130. The Schuppanzigh Quartet gave the first performance on 21 March 1826.
The fugue was poorly received, and Beethoven composed a new finale for the quartet at the request of his publisher. The Grosse Fuge was published as a separate work in 1827 as Op. 133. The work was composed when Beethoven was deaf and is part of his late quartets. The composition is now considered one of Beethoven's greatest achievements.
Composition history
Beethoven originally composed the fugue as the final movement of String Quartet No. 13 in B major, Op. 130 in late 1825. The piece was commissioned by Prince Nikolai Galitzin along with two other string quartets in January 1823. Beethoven finished the project three years later. The copy of Op. 130 that Galitzin received in early 1826 had the fugue intact.
Soon after Galitzin's commission, Beethoven set to work. After finishing the String Quartet in A minor, Op. 132, he began work on the quartet in B early in 1825. On 29 August, he estimated the composition would be finished in ten days. The two previous Galitzin pieces were published by Schott and Maurice Schlesinger. Beethoven sold the publishing rights for the B quartet to Matthias Artaria in January 1826 for 80 ducats.
Beethoven ended other quartets with fugal forms, as had Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Beethoven once quipped, "To make a fugue requires no particular skill...in my study days I made dozens of them. But the fancy wishes also to assert its privileges, and to-day a new and really poetical element must be introduced into the old traditional form."
thumb|upright=0.8|Karl Holz, violinist in the Schuppanzigh String Quartet and confidant of Beethoven.
As Beethoven aged, his string quartets got longer. The Grosse Fuge sprawls over 741 measures of music. The finale dwarfs the rest of the quartet. During rehearsals at Beethoven's apartment, the Schuppanzigh Quartet struggled with the fugue. Ignaz Schuppanzigh's ensemble normally sight read music at their concerts. Second violinist Karl Holz joked with Beethoven that his was the only music that required practice.
The Schuppanzigh Quartet gave the premiere performance on 21 March 1826 at a house where the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde hosted chamber music concerts in Vienna. The other movements were received enthusiastically, and the audience requested encores of the second and fourth movement. Beethoven was informed by his brother Johann that the music delighted "the whole city". The fugue was not a success. Its length and complexity challenged both the performers and the audience. One critic described it as incomprehensible.
After performing the premiere, Karl Holz, who was also the composer's secretary and confidant, told Beethoven about the encores for the second and fourth movements. Beethoven growled, "And why didn't they encore the Fugue? That alone should have been repeated! Cattle! Asses!"
Just a few weeks later on 11 April, Matthias Artaria asked Beethoven to approve a piano duet arrangement of the fugue. Publishing proofs for the string quartet were ready by August, but Artaria worried about the quartet's commercial potential. Karl Holz recalled:
<blockquote>"Artaria...charged me with the terrible and difficult task of convincing Beethoven to compose a new finale, which would be more accessible to the listeners as well as the instrumentalists, to substitute for the fugue which was so difficult to understand. I maintained to Beethoven that this fugue, which departed from the ordinary and surpassed even the last quartets in originality, should be published as a separate work and that it merited a designation as a separate opus."</blockquote>
Artaria offered an additional fee for publication of the fugue, and Beethoven quickly agreed. Aside from the extra money, various justifications have been offered for why Beethoven acquiesced to Artaria. The lively final movement which replaced the fugue is in the form of a contredanse and is completely uncontroversial. Beethoven composed this replacement finale while staying at the estate of his brother Johann in Gneixendorf during the late autumn of 1826. It was the last completed score of his life.
In May 1827, two months after Beethoven's death, Matthias Artaria published the first edition of Op. 130 with the new finale, the Grosse Fuge as Op. 133, and the four-hand piano arrangement of the fugue as Op. 134. The fugue is dedicated to Beethoven's student and patron Archduke Rudolf of Austria.
Form
Beethoven gave Grosse Fuge the subtitle "" (sometimes free, sometimes learned). Harvey Grace pointed to a similar inscription in the Hammerklavier fugue and the overlapping meanings of "recherché" and ricercar: "sought out". Its form has been widely analyzed and compared to a steroidal Baroque fugue, a suite of smaller pieces, and even a symphonic poem in sonata form. The fugue's structure transcends normal syntax.
Fugue subjects
The subject of the Grosse Fuge is an eight-note chromatic motif that climbs an octave. Its shape has been compared to a wedge that approaches the second scale degree. The motif appears in various guises in several of Beethoven's late quartets, such as the first movement of String Quartet No. 15 in A minor, Op. 132. Similar motifs can be found in Christoph Willibald Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice (1774) and Joseph Haydn's String Quartet in G, Op. 33, No. 5.
The subject also bears a striking resemblance to Johann Sebastian Bach's musical spelling of his surname. The four notes of the Bach motif are spelled in reverse by the final pitches of Beethoven's subject: B-C-A-B. As Beethoven was in the thick of composing the string quartet and wrestling with its finale, Friedrich Kuhlau visited him on 2 September. Kuhlau jotted the Bach motif in Beethoven's conversation book. In reply, Beethoven drunkenly scribbled out a canon using the motif. He sent Kuhlau a finished three-part canon on the motif with some lyrics that punned on the Danish composer's name.. Bach's cryptogram appears in several Beethoven works from this period, including sketches for an overture based on the motif.
Beethoven considered several options for the fugue's second subject, including the "Ode to Joy" from his Ninth Symphony.. He settled on an exuberant melody in a dotted rhythm with a few compound interval leaps. Vincent d'Indy characterized the primary subject as emblematic of serious thought and the second as thoughtless frivolity.
:Second subject of the Grosse Fuge:
<div style="zoom: 80%;">
:<score lang="lilypond">
{
\relative c' {
\set Score.currentBarNumber = #31
\time 4/4 \key bes \major
\partial2 r8. d16\ff f'8[ r16 f]
f8[ r16 d,] f'8[ r16 f] f8[ r16 d,] aes8[ r16 aes]
aes8[ r16 g] g8[ r16 f] f8[ r16 es] es8[ r16 d]
es8
}
}
</score></div>
Overtura
The fugue opens with a 29-bar introduction that Beethoven called an overture in his manuscript. Beethoven asked for it to be played without pause after the Cavatina movement of the quartet. The final chord of the fifth movement includes the G that the quartet sounds in unison to begin the finale. The ensemble continues in unison to state the main fugue subject. The style and interval content are clearly linked to the very opening of the entire quartet.
:Opening bars of Grosse Fugue:
<div style="zoom: 70%;">
:<score lang="lilypond">
{
<< \new StaffGroup <<
\new Staff <<
\tempo Allegro
\relative c' {
\clef treble \key g \major \time 6/8
\grace { g16 g' } g'2.~\f
g4.\fermata g,4.~\ff
g2.~
g
gis\sf
f'\sf
e\sf
gis,\sf
a4 r8 fis'!4 r8
\afterGrace g!4\trill { fis16 g } r8 r4.\fermata
}
>>
\new Staff <<
\relative c' {
\clef treble \key g \major
\grace { s16 s } <g g'>2.~\f
<g g'>4.\fermata g4.~\ff
g2.~
g
gis\sf
f'\sf
e\sf
gis,\sf
a4 r8 fis'!4 r8
\afterGrace g!4\trill { fis16 g } r8 r4.\fermata
}
>>
\new Staff <<
\relative c' {
\clef alto \key g \major
\grace { s16 s } <g g'>2.~\f
<g g'>4.\fermata g4.~\ff
g2.~
g
gis\sf
f'\sf
e\sf
gis,\sf
a4 r8 fis'!4 r8
\afterGrace g!4\trill { fis16 g } r8 r4.\fermata
}
>>
\new Staff <<
\relative c {
\clef bass \key g \major
\grace { s16 s } <g g'>2.~\f
<g g'>4.\fermata g4.~\ff
g2.~
g
gis\sf
f'\sf
e\sf
gis,\sf
a4 r8 fis'!4 r8
\afterGrace g!4\trill { fis16 g } r8 r4.\fermata
}
>>
>>
>> }
</score></div>
In its second statement, Beethoven transposes the subject down to F major and gives it a quiet quarter note rhythm. The cello repeats the motif for a third time down an octave as the other instruments foreshadow the fugue's busy tempo.
The overture concludes with the first violin's solo statement of the primary theme in a syncopated rhythm. Beethoven has outlined his four major treatments of the theme in reverse order. The fugue proper will begin with the last version of the subject heard in the overture.