Beethoven - Arrangement of Grosse Fuge, Opus 134

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." Jörg Demus,Norman Shelter - Piano Great Fugue op.134 for piano four hands - Beethoven's Arrangement of the "Grosse Fuge" op. 133 for string quartet Key B♭ major Movements/Sections 1 Year/Date of Composition 1825--26 First Publication 1827 Dedication Archduke Rudolph of Austria Piece Style Classical Instrumentation piano Arrangement for piano duet When Beethoven detached the movement from the quartet, he still wanted the music to be as accessible as possible. The way to do this in the days before electronic or mechanical sound reproduction was to make an arrangement for piano four-hands; many of his larger-scale scores were made available for home music-making in this fashion. The publisher commissioned someone to make this arrangement,[15] but Beethoven was so unhappy at the result that he undertook his own version, which was published as op. 134. 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 it with a new finale and published it 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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