Prelude and fugue beethoven biography

See also: Catalogues of Beethoven compositions

The list of compositions of Ludwig van Beethoven consists of 722 works written over forty-five years, from his earliest work in 1782 (variations for piano on a march by Ernst Christoph Dressler) when he was only eleven years old and still in Bonn, until his last work just before his death in Vienna in 1827. Beethoven composed works in all the main genres of classical music, including symphonies, concertos, string quartets, piano sonatas and opera. His compositions range from solo works to those requiring a large orchestra and chorus.

Beethoven straddled both the Classical and Romantic periods, working in genres associated with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and his teacher Joseph Haydn, such as the piano concerto, string quartet and symphony, while on the other hand providing the groundwork for other Romantic composers, such as Hector Berlioz and Franz Liszt, with programmatic works such as his Pastoral Symphony and Piano Sonata "Les Adieux". Beethoven's work is typically divided into three periods: the "Early" period, where he composed in the "Viennese" style; the "Middle" or "Heroic" period, where his work is characterised by struggle and heroism, such as in the Eroica Symphony, the Fifth Symphony, the Appassionata Sonata and in his sole opera Fidelio; and the "Late" period, marked by intense personal expression and an emotional and intellectual profundity. Although his output greatly diminished in his later years, this period saw the composition of masterpieces such as the late string quartets, the final five piano sonatas, the Diabelli Variations, the Missa Solemnis and the Ninth Symphony.

Beethoven's works are classified by both genre and various numbering systems. The best-known numbering system for Beethoven's works is that by opus number, assigned by Beethoven's publishers during his lifetime. Only 172

Composition for string quartet by Ludwig van Beethoven

"Great Fugue" redirects here. For the piece by J. S. Bach, see Great Fantasia and Fugue in G minor, BWV 542.

The Grosse Fuge (German: Große Fuge, also known in English as the Great Fugue or Grand Fugue), Op. 133, is a single-movement composition for string quartet by Ludwig van Beethoven. An immense double fugue, it was universally condemned by contemporary music critics. A reviewer writing for the 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 early 20th century and it is now considered among Beethoven's greatest achievements. Igor Stravinsky described it as "an absolutely contemporary piece of music that will be contemporary forever".

The Grosse Fuge was originally composed as the final movement of Beethoven's Quartet No. 13 in B♭ major, Op. 130, written in 1825; but Beethoven's publisher was concerned about the dismal commercial prospects of the piece and wanted the composer to replace the fugue with a new finale. Beethoven complied, and the Grosse Fuge was published as a separate work in 1827 as Op. 133. The work was composed when Beethoven was nearly totally deaf, and is considered to be part of his set of late quartets. The Grosse Fuge was first performed in 1826, as the finale of the B♭ quartet, by the Schuppanzigh Quartet.

Music analysts and critics have described the Grosse Fuge as "inaccessible", "eccentric", "filled with paradoxes", and "Armageddon". Critic and musicologist Joseph Kerman calls it "the most problematic single work in Beethoven's output and ... doubtless in the entire literature of music", and violinist David Matthews describes it as "fiendishly difficult to play".

History of the composition

Beethoven originally wrote the fugue as the closi

Notwithstanding that Beethoven had mounted a successful and indeed monumental challenge to the fugal legacy of J. S. Bach, the fugue as a musical genre — we can even call it a form — was already rapidly dying off as a subject of interest for composers by 1800, except perhaps in sacred choral music, where the form remained viable (the final “Amen” in the Gloria of the Mass Ordinary, for example). Beethoven’s fugues in op. 106 (“Hammerklavier”), 110, 120 (Ninth Symphony), and 131 are all triumphal, decisively enlarging the scope of what Bach left, but they are also culminant. Nobody else dared to try very much for a while, at least, in the 19 century. Schubert occasionally indulged — in the Mass in A-flat Major, D 678 (two versions), in the finale of the F Minor Fantasy for piano four hands, D 940, and a few isolated examples which are all rather dry and “old style,” notably in the clumsy fugato finale of the otherwise magnificent “Wanderer” Fantasy, op. 15, D 760 — an example of “a composer who has lost his way,” as Robert Bailey put it.

After Beethoven, the fugue is a special case for most composers. For instance, did you know that Chopin wrote one? It’s a short piece à 2, from near the end of his career, and nobody ever plays it, but it’s quite good. There’s a bravely vulgar fugato in the last movement of Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, a ride in Hell, where it belongs. But the Offertory (Domine Jesu Christi) in Berlioz’s Grande messe des morts (Requiem) is a unique masterpiece, and a very strange one at that — the fugal texture is entirely in the orchestra, and the choral role is restricted to an ostinato of two notes. Mendelssohn, who wrote a lot of Lutheran music, regarded the fugue more affectionately, in oratorios and organ sonatas. I don’t know any fugues by Weber and can’t even imagine a fugue by Wagner. (But consider the famous psychologist’s dichotomy of instinct for “fight or flight” — the end of Act II of Meistersinger, which embodies the