The Grosse Fuge Part 4: Beast and the Beauty

DAILY DOSE of BEETHOVEN (June 5, 2020)

Yesterday we listened to a long double fugue, in Bb, that became more and more cacaphonous both tonally and metrically as it proceeded. We ended on a passage which we characterized as “Beethoven wrestling the beast to the ground”. We asked, what could possibly follow?

The answer is one of the most beautiful passages ever composed. And, it is the same theme—the main one. And, it is still fugal. Again, we provide an audio to help make it clear.

Again, we hear Beethoven learning from the poet, Friedrich Schiller. In his Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Mankind, Schiller insists that we should easily be able to—in the same work of art, even on the same theme—go from sorrow, to laughter, and back to sorrow again, without being destabilized by the process. Why? To develop ourselves morally and aesthetically. Because then, we have an integrity in our souls, and we meet both sorrow and laughter with the same developed mind, which is organized as a unity. Schiller loved Shakespeare, whose success in composing both tragedy and comedy is unparalleled (Socrates had insisted that they came from the same roots, almost 2,000 years earlier). Introducing humor, through the character of the fool, into King Lear, did not undermine the horror of the story, or make it less serious. Likewise, introducing serious matters into a comedy, should not "kill the vibe."

Before Beethoven, it was normal to end a movement based on one psychological state or emotion, and, after a pause, introduce a very different one. Beethoven, especially in his later works, literally wrenches us from one state to another. We have already heard the 6th movement of the 14th String Quartet in C# minor, Op. 131, expressing the incredible sadness of the Kol Nidre(May 19, 2020 post on Beethoven and the New Synagogue). Before addressing the Grosse Fuge, the audio will play the transition from the playful 5th movement, to the sixth movement of that work. It wrenches the listener into a shockingly different world.

However, in the Grosse Fuge, we have something both higher and deeper. The same theme is transformed from raucous and destabilizing, to gorgeous. This is establshed after Beethoven "wrestles the theme to the ground", in a section marked meno mosso e moderato (less motion, and moderate).

We find that most renditions are too fast. Meno mosso e moderato does not suggest a very slow tempo. One has to follow reason, as established in the music itself. The contrast between ugliness and beauty is key. If the slow section is played too fast, then the stark contrast is lost.

We present here the audio for your review. It begins with the end of the raucous Bb double fugue: https://soundcloud.com/user-385773006/the-grosse-fuge-part-4-beast

The Grosse Fuge is a difficult piece to listen to, and a great performance is necessary to help us comprehend it.The great conductor Wihelm Furtwangler did not consider that an orchestra could perform it better than a string quartet, but he had never heard a string quartet performance that he considered adequate, so he recorded it with orchestra in the 1950s. He set the gold standard.

The Amadeus Quartet was legendary, and recorded superb versions of many works, but the only recording we know of that successfully emulates Furtwangler's orchestral performance, is this one by the Quartetto Italiano. Some of our reasoning on the matter is given in today's audio.