Beethoven: Grosse Fuge (1825)
Overtura – Allegro – Meno mosso e moderato – Allegro molto e con brio
This towering giant of a work was the original finale to Beethoven’s Op.130 string quartet, which received its first performance by the former Rasumovsky Quartet under Ignaz Schuppanzigh, on March 21, 1826. Beethoven did not attend this première and waited in a local tavern for reports. When news finally reached him, he was not best pleased to learn that there had been demand for encores of the second and fourth movements, but not the Fugue. General response had indicated that, whilst some listeners had been enthralled by it, others were left with a sense of puzzlement and confusion. Although rarely prepared to accommodate the wishes of his publisher Artaria, or those of performers and friends, Beethoven was on this occasion persuaded to write an alternative finale to Op.130 and to publish the Grosse Fuge separately as Op.133. Artaria paid him handsomely for his trouble. Whilst the work does succeed in being performed in isolation from the rest of Op.130, there is no doubt that it provides a natural conclusion to the whole quartet – that of eclipsing all that had come before. With the substitute finale, a much lighter movement with a rousing, bucolic main theme, the heart of the quartet lies, instead, within the Cavatina.
The Grosse Fuge was given the following description on the title page – “Grande fugue, tantôt libre, tantôt recherchée” (Grand fugue, sometimes improvised, sometimes worked out). The opening, titled Overtura, lasts thirty bars, changes tempo three times, stops and starts five times, in the manner of an improvisation (“tantôt libre”), and presents all the potential thematic material. This material is then studied (“tantôt recherchée”) and explored over 128 bars. It forms a double fugue with the theme of the Overtura being taken by the viola, whilst the first violin introduces a wild, leaping motive based on huge intervals – initially a 10th then a 12th. The dynamics are relentlessly fortissimo with additional sforzandi for extra impact. Each instrument shares these ideas which develop through bold harmony, exploration of the semitone theme, and feverish rhythmic thrust until reaching an oasis.
Here the tempo is marked Meno mosso e moderato. The semiquaver material first previewed by the viola in the Overtura is now unfolded. It is a relief to all to have arrived here, despite the difficulty of the key of G flat major! The calmer nature of this section, with its caressing semiquavers and now pacified fugue theme, reveals Beethoven at his most sublime. The dynamic is insistently sempre pianissimo (in stark contrast to the unrelenting fortissimo of the first fugue); andthe hushed but intense effect of this section is maintained until the end, where a brief crescendo serves to highlight a sense of unity – all top three parts are playing in rhythmic and melodic unison, like a choral affirmation.
The following section changes metre to 6/8 and the tempo indication becomes Allegro molto e con brio. Beethoven then explores the thematic material from bar 11 of the Overtura. The mood here is positively jaunty, and the manner in which the melodic strands are shared between first and second violins is nothing short of witty. The sun has temporarily come out to play, helped by a return to B flat major. However, this joyous scherzo section doesn’t last, as the cello now introduces an angry reminder of the original fugue, answered by a desperate motive in the second violin resembling a breathless cry. The key signature has changed once again to an implied A flat major, but throughout this extended and increasingly highly charged third main fugue, countless more keys are visited. The extreme chromaticism, trills and leaping quavers serve to quicken the pulse and add to the momentum which is suddenly interrupted by yet another contrasting section marked Meno mosso e moderato. Now settled in the key of A flat, it has very little in common with the sublime calm of the original meno mosso, for here Beethoven marks a disquieting forte on every single beat. Something ominous is about to happen…
For the next twenty-two bars, we are subjected to a stop-start series of harmonic progressions, all the time becoming softer until the music finally launches back into B flat major and a return of the earlier jaunty 6/8 mood. We wonder whether we will be gently and benignly cajoled to the end of the piece, having lived through so much anger thus far. But Beethoven is not through with us yet; the music loses momentum and then stops. Here, the first and second violins attempt a fortissimo reminder of the initial opening of the first fugue – are we to be subjected to a new working of this? After a pause, we are then reminded of the caressing pianissimo semiquaver fugue, joined by the viola. Then another pause. To conclude, in a manner possibly reminiscent of the Finale from the Choral Symphony, the quartet plays in rhythmic and melodic unison an extended peroration based on the opening bars of the piece – truly a final affirmation. Through the remaining bars, even in conclusion, Beethoven is far from predictable – we are taken from fortissimo to pianissimo with some curious question and answer trill bars between the top three voices and the cello, and are still left wondering how such a movement can be brought to rest. This it is, swiftly and jubilantly.
Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge is undoubtedly one of the most challenging works in the entire quartet repertoire, both for performer and listener. It is a physically and emotionally shattering piece to play because of the consistent level of intensity throughout, in both piano and forte. There is no doubt that Beethoven intended this to be so, and the fact that it remains a constant challenge to us all is as it should be. There is a true sense of the struggle, the anguish, the frustration, the anger that we know he felt through being deaf and the ongoing personal issues with his nephew Karl. Yet the pockets of almost ethereal calm serve to persuade us that he was a man of humility, vulnerability and spiritual vision. Works such as this could be said to be the stepping stones to the future evolution of music.
Lucy Russell & Alan George
(Lucy has been a member of the Fitzwilliam String Quartet since 1988, and leader from 1996 to the present day.)
In Man and his Music, Wilfrid Mellers quotes the closing passage of Little Gidding (the fourth of T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets) at the end of the section on the late quartets of Beethoven, suggesting that Eliot “has been trying to deal with precisely the kind of experience with which Beethoven was preoccupied”. Prof. Mellers feels that this poetry “comes about as close to describing in words what Beethoven’s last quartets are about as is humanly possible” – certainly closer than the scatchings of any programme annotator. And as these lines seem particularly relevant to the Grosse Fuge, they are quoted here in the hope that the reader or listener might, as a result, feel closer to both Eliot and Beethoven:
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, remembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was at the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always;
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.
