Ludwig Van Beethoven - Grosse Fuge, Op. 133, Part I

[tediiiiiiiiiiii]

I dont see how someone can dislike a piece like this?! I have no fucking idea how Beethoven has come with this idea and what was in his head. Admire him!

[LvBnumber1]

love it very nice <3

[S0NNABEND]

Beethoven himselfe named this a fugue!

[maricahn]

Guys, seriously, THIS IS NOT A FUGUE.

Bach fugues are fugues, this is other different thing.

[SpyVi]

@maricahn ...this IS a fugue. It doesn't matter if you thing it's ugly, it's still a fugue. Surely it's way off baroque's sense of beauty and music. Try listening carefully or with the sheet music to follow along and you will make out everything-voices, themes etc. As I see it, this actually has emotion, it bears meaning. Bachs fugues, for example in the WTC, are more like "music for music", they are a grand play between themes, but not much emotion coming out of it. I still like them though :P

[crosseneric]

@maricahn okay man please dont post a comment with out proper knowledge on the subject. True this is not a common fugue but it has everything required of a fugue. He did this on perpose so we can understand how vastly stretched and twisted he was feeling at the time with his nephew Carl trying to commit suicied and such. He took the idea and rules of a fugue (his life) and messed with it as much as he could (to symbolize what he was feeling) but still keeping it a fugue 

[develish16]

@maricahn You are utterly stupid and musically ignorant... A fugue is any piece of music in which you would have 2 or more voices playing in a parallel manner, i.e. the first voice plays the theme then the second voice follows in the next few measures and plays the theme again and so on... SO THIS IS DEFINITELY A FUGUE !!!

[maricahn]

@develish16 @crosseneric @SpyVi

This is not a fugue, my point stands. A fugue has to have COUNTERPOINT and has not to be have the romantic shit "here up here soft here faster etc". It's an attempt to fugue, but with so much espression and lack of baroque resourcism that it becomes not a fugue. As a privileged and hard-working self-student of advanced counterpoint I can clearly see this is not a fugue and this is not even musically worthy as a fugue would be. Period.

[develish16]

@maricahn once again, you are limiting the style of the fugue to the baroque style. whereas in reality, a fugue is as I told you before, i.e. the multi-voice playing of the theme. It is essentially a developed form of a canon and what you are referring to is a type of fugue which prevailed throughout the baroque period

[SpyVi]

@maricahn And again, this IS a fugue, and it HAS counterpoint. It is not the baroque style counterpoint, but counterpoint is, essensially, puting "point againts point", such an advanced studed would know that. 

[laverdad95]

Thank you (from Spain) Gracias!!!

[plagueofangels666]

can it get more complicated?...no

can it get any better?...NO!

[friulano]

Who Are the players of the music?

[schlesmail]

Rock on, Louie!

[MaximumBreaker]

Oh, it's too slow.

Greetings from Germany.

[Zeffner]

I really love this piece as well! I always put on when I have to do the laundry, and everytime my boyfriend asks me turn put on headphones:p

[Agomongo1235]

is nmrd supposed to mean nimrod?

[bachlokillo]

Está muy bien el vídeo. Amo Beethoven, pero unas imágenes no hubiesen estado mal...

[vicenteelperro]

@bachlokillo deja que tu alma visualice tus emociones al escucharla......

:)

[tupariovy]

Mi sa molto di indignita contro il mondo intero...Una confusioni di pensieri ma altretanto allegra

[richdog89]

I particularly like that there is no video. Instead of trying to make some inadequate slideshow of random pictures, you have allowed us to use our imaginations and to focus solely on our sense of sound. Beautiful, beautiful sounds.

[MrDesperateArtist]

Only God will admire the work of the real artist.

that's why at Beethoven's time, many reacted to this piece..

[Agomongo1235]

o shit i never knew tis piece would bring me down for the begining and shivering and more

[voxhunden]

Great version. Great piece.

[TheTrueLichKingUS]

Beautiful song. Just one more reason why Ludwig Van Beethoven is one of the greatest composers to have ever lived. I don't know why the audiences didn't like this piece. It's so soulful and moving.

[Divinemetal]

People were accustomed to hearing Haydn and Mozart and Salieri and the like, neither of whom included such (wonderful) dissonance as this. People were just not ready for it, the way the world was not ready for Schönberg's twelve-tone music in the 1930s or Black Sabbath in the 1960s. It was later embraced as a true Romantic piece. This is long; apologies. I just love Herr Beethoven.

[NetworkHaze]

Finally.

If God was to speak with Beethoven's music.

This piece explains why he forgives us.

[NetworkHaze]

This is not ugly. This is not beautiful. This is both of them.

This is how the world is created and connected with an unbreakable bound.

Cause:

*You can't be really beautiful if you don't feel ugly and humble.

*You can't be rich if you don't see yourself as a poor man.

*You can't be the greatest composer of all time if you are not deaf!

Every piece is carefully added in a way that can't be replaced.

Simply... Perfect.

[asskickerfoo]

Wow, that's some really right though there. I have 1 thing with this song which don't add-up with your thought, I don't see anything ugly, just pure greatness flowing through my body :-)

[UltraStarGod20]

one of the least understood masterpieces ever...

[ivan99999896]

Igor Stravinsky considered this to be the greatest piece of music ever written.

[PINKFLOYDPIG2]

incredibile

[grThetrojan01gr]

I am sure I recognise 100% Furtwangler's conducting style in here. :) Where did you get the sound from?

[frapimpi76]

This music is stunning, it sounds like Bartòk's in some way...and it just requires two-three times listening to be appreciated like every piece of "difficult" music. You just cannot go on thinking that classical music must be understood at first...sometimes it needs time and love and care :)

[wierdo1232123]

"BTW, this(the Fuge) is one of my favorites. I have first heard this piece in the movie "Copying Beethoven".

I enjoyed the movie very much, highly recommended. Really, one of the bests^^"

Me as well....

[Darkoni2000]

That movie is a piece of shit .

[lsdvine]

dont you want beethoven to achieve what he deserved?

[Darkoni2000]

I don't quite understand your comment .....

[lsdvine]

before films like these, the general public that we are now, (rather than peasants) wouldnt have any knowledge of these composers. was that not what they set out to do? become famous and rich as well as expressing their deepest emotions. The point im making is that to hate an educational film is counter-productive, unless its propoganda or somethin. AS YOU WERE SOLDIER!

[Darkoni2000]

Now I understand you :) For example the movie "Amadeus" , which is about Mozart , is great . It showed us historical and personal approach to Mozart , but movie "Copying Beethoven" has bad historical and personal approach to Beethoven . He is shown like a jerk , which he wasn't . Winners don't create history , Hollywood does .

[otherjoe1234]

@Darkoni2000

ehh, only the people who go along with what's presented to them make it "history"

[mayorde18]

yeah i loved that movie copying beethoven it's cool

lol

[chowdaw]

its so dissonant....almost too difficult to listen to...but at the same time i cant stop listening. completely fantastic!

[peaceric]

if totally insane people wrote music, it would sound like this

this is just such a stunning piece of music, even by contemporary standards... i can't imagine what people thought back in the day

[DaniStar52]

This guy is just plain awesomeness! :D

[ouinonyes]

wow amazing composition

unbelievable voicing of the string in that time

genious

my hero

[mogirl69]

unbelievable

[MU51CxL0V3R]

Pure genious... who knows what was going thru Beethoven's mind or what inspired him to wrtie such an extraordinary piece like this. Truly one, or probably the greates composer ever. THANK YOU!

[chrish12345]

this is the Quartetto Italiano right?

[thegoddescomposer]

just such of beauty of beethoven, this fuga will life for ever for sure

[PARISA7777]

Thanks for sharing!

[mwmorph]

This isn't bad, but there is just something bout Pachelbel's Canon in D that is so much more alluring. I'm probably not your target demographic, being a younger male that usually listens to contemporary music, but I'd personally like to find more like your first video.

There's just something about how Canon in D seems much more attractive than the later 2 songs.

Canon in D is the first classical song I've worked into my regular listening rotation, are there more like it?

[gspaulsson]

You are comparing apples and oranges. But try the Albioni Adagio, the whole of the Mozart Requiem (the Lacryomsa is the movement that usually grabs people first), Erbarme Dich from Bach's St Matthew Passion, the Esurientes movement of his Magnificat, the first movement of Schubert's Eb-major trio, the 2nd movement of Beethoven's Ninth and the 3rd and 4th movements of the Fifth - get to like those and you're ready for some more. Other people will disagree, but that's my quickie introduction.

[TheStockwell]

@gspaulsson Update on the "Albinoni" adagio. Albinoni didn't write it. It was composed in 1958 by Remo Giazotto, an Albinoni scholar who, after giving several versions of how he discovered it, finally said it was his own creation. Oh, and your list of recommended pieces is brilliant!

[snufkin789]

seems you should look for baroque music with features like basso continuo.

its not a shame to not get into beethovens große fuge, as its whole structure is extraordinary dense. moreover, the sensual equivalents to this music is a more exquisite- just take a look on beethovens ontology as an artist, his life was like this piece a struggle that exceeds the general definitios of passion and genius. however, maybe ravel's bolero will do it for you too .. regards

[JFITD]

It seems that what you are looking for is accessible music. And yes, in the so-called classical world, there are many such examples. Try Albinoni's Adagio for Organ and Orchestra; the second movement of Beethoven's Piano Sonata 8; the second movement of Mozart's Piano Concerto 21; and the first movement of Beethoven's Piano Sonata 14.

The above pieces are both "slow" and very accessible.

I hope you enjoy all your classical listening.

[al1432]

There is a string orchestra version conducted by Klemperer that rocks. Sounds less frenetic yet more powerful with an orchestra (string) vs. a quartet.

[lebrondude]

I thought a fuge started with the bass parts then worked up in complexity and pitch...

[Jagtarro]

nah, it doesn't have to be that - beethoven broke all the rules of old forms from the earlier classical form and the baroque era - he put choral works into a SYMPHONY! people sure didn't like that. But that's why beethoven's music is so amazing - its so much different and from other composers during and before his time

[franbidonde]

please ... don't talk if you dont know ... when beethoven presented this quartet, nobody liked it and his words, instead of being bad towards the public, where " they are not ready" ..

[gspaulsson]

A fugue can start with any part. Ultimately it evolved from the medieval cantus firmus, in which the melody is "held" by the tenor (which is why it is called the tenor, from tenere, to hold). Looking at Bach's Well- Tempered Clavier book 2, the first entries are: I&II, Alto; III&IV, Bass; V, Tenor; VI, Soprano, etc.

[leomulder]

You don't know neither who are the interpreters here.

[amadeus5889]

I can appreciate this fugue as a scholar. It's meticulously constructed and flawlessly executed. However, I don't enjoy listening to it much. It's the rhythm, the "galloping" figure that runs the length of the fugue. I find it taxing and annoying.

[Ramatganski]

Somehow I don't buy the appreciation as a "scholar" bit.

The meticulous construction is with awareness to, and is very much ABOUT the persistence of the "taxing" and "annoying" galloping figure - which DOES NOT run the entire length of the fugue! (hint: what happens with the idea introduced at 0:41? And another: when is the coda in the major(!) first introduced?). This piece deals with persistence and struggle, it's not a detached "study", nor does it aim to be a mere pleasant experience.

[Ramatganski]

(This doesn't mean, though, that it's all so serious, tense and dramatic with it and isn't also playful, humoristic, witty and - yes - also pleasant and relaxed).

"As a scholar", really, man, there's no such thing as an appreciation of Beethoven's merits as a musician and composer without the understanding of his sensitive awareness and consideration to the effects and implications of sonority and rhythm (just listen to this "movement"'s introduction!)

[amadeus5889]

I appreciate it as a masterpiece of music, but I don't like listening to it.

Think of it like Picasso--everyone says he's a genius, but some people just don't like his paintings. And I am a theory student, so if "scholar" is too snobby, my apologies.

[fiddlinmatt]

So as a theory student, your apprieciation overflows, but it's not as appealing to your ear. I guess I can understand. I love everything about this piece, but the Picasso analogy was a good one.

[bertubus]

If you don't like listening to it perhaps you haven't experienced what Beethoven experienced in order for this to emerge from his conciousness.

One can only identify with 'others' to the degree one knows oneself

[amadeus5889]

Oh, no. I could never say I have experienced what Beethoven had to go through to write the music he did. He was a musician who was dealt the cruellest of fates: deafness. The greatest gift he had was taken away from him, and he forced himself to overcome it anyway.

I really am not trying to make anyone angry or bitter with my comments. I'm just trying to voice my opinions.

[KFerendo1]

Personally, I prefer it performed a bit faster, though this is alright. There is another version on here, Youtube, that I like very much.

[blastbomb123]

This music is very calm and peaceful, and yet so powerful. My kind of music!

[PacoPiernas]

this is amazing, i love this fugue, i think is the best of beethoven...just amaced...sublime!

[nmrd123987]

Completely agree!^^

[D4v1d800]

Very fancy music!and on the description of the video I acually learned something O.O

[nmrd123987]

Thank you