Große Fuge

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 was universally condemned by contemporary critics. A reviewer writing for Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung in 1826 described the fugue as "incomprehensible, like Chinese" and "a confusion of Babel". 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."

The Große Fuge originally served as the final movement of his Quartet No. 13 in B♭ major (Op. 130), written in 1825. But Beethoven's publisher, who was concerned about the dismal commercial prospects of the piece, urged Beethoven to replace the fugue with a new finale. Beethoven complied, and the Grosse Fuge was published separately in 1827 as Op. 133. It was composed when Beethoven was almost 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.

Analysts describe the Große Fuge as "inaccessible", "eccentric", "filled with paradoxes", and "Armaggedon". "[It] stands out as the most problematic single work in Beethoven's output and … doubtless in the entire literature of music," writes Joseph Kerman of the fugue.

Also, writes violinist and composer David Matthews, "it is fiendishly difficult to play."

Beethoven originally composed the Große Fuge as the final movement of his String Quartet No. 13 (Op. 130). His choice of a fugal form for the last movement was well grounded in tradition: Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven himself had used fugues as final movements of quartets. But in recent years, Beethoven had become increasingly concerned with the challenge of integrating this Baroque form into the Classical structure. "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," Beethoven wrote. The resulting movement was a mammoth work, longer than all the other movements of the quartet together. Beethoven wrote at the top of the score, "Grande fugue tantôt libre, tantôt recherchée" (a grand fugue, somewhat free, somewhat researched), an indication of his ambition to reconcile the academic and the romantic. The fugue is dedicated to the Archduke Rudolf of Austria, his student and patron.

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