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Like Ms. Carbo, musicologists sounded stunned when read a description of the manuscript by Sotheby's, which will auction it on Dec. 1 in London. "Wow! Oh my God!" said Lewis Lockwood, a musicology professor at Harvard University and a Beethoven biographer. "This is big. This is very big."

Indeed it is.

Any manuscript showing a composer's self-editing gives invaluable insight into his working methods, and this is a particularly rich example. Such second thoughts are particularly revealing in the case of Beethoven, who, never satisfied, honed his ideas brutally - unlike, say, Mozart, who was typically able to spill out a large score in nearly finished form.

What's more, this manuscript is among Beethoven's last, from the period when he was stone deaf. It not only depicts his thought processes at their most introspective and his working methods at their most intense, but also gives a sense of his concern for his legacy. The "Grosse Fuge," originally part of a string quartet, had been badly treated by a baffled public, and he was evidently eager to see it live on in a form in which music lovers could play it on their pianos at home.

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...it was astonishingly complex. After the premiere on March 21, 1826, a reviewer called the music "incomprehensible, like Chinese" and suggested that Beethoven's deafness was at fault. Beethoven wrote another finale, lighter and more pastoral, and agreed to have the "Grosse Fuge" published separately.

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It was composed, and published, as the finale of his Op. 130 String Quartet, a member of the colossal series of late quartets.

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So i guess he decided to make his last few very complicated.
 

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Posted by Narnia (Member # 1071) on :
 
Ah. That's what I get for not reading the whole article.

But I'm proud of myself for being so close! I actually have 130 at home, I'll have to listen to it now.
 

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Posted by BunnV (Member # 6816) on :
 
::jealous:: Does 130 also have crazy fugues in it? I may or many not have listened to either, since my beethoven string quartet CD's were stolen a while back. But I'm sure I can find the music again somehow.
 

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Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
 
Wow, I was late seeing this. That is very cool. I wonder how much the manuscript ended up selling for?
 

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Posted by the_Somalian (Member # 6688) on :
 
I have never come to grips with the Grosse Fugue. It shocked me the first time I heard it over a year ago and it still shocks me today. Honestly, I prefer to listen to the quartet with the replacement movement (the last substantial piece of music Beethoven ever wrote!) and listen to the Grosse Fugue seperately.

And hey Narnia--the opus 131 is actually my personal favorite LvB late quartet. The 6th movement adagio (which lasts 2 minutes only!) is achingly melodic and mournful and breaks brilliantly into a hair-raising intense allegro finale.
 

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Posted by Narnia (Member # 1071) on :
 
I love 131 too. It's one that I've listened to repeatedly.

My favorite thing about Beethoven string quartets and the defining aural characteristic is that they always sound like MORE than 4 instruments. I don't know how he does it, but most string quartets have a hollow, transparent sound to them, simply because scoring for 4 stringed instruments isn't usually very full. Unless you're Beethoven.
 

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Posted by the_Somalian (Member # 6688) on :
 
Or Brahms wishing to be the master.
 

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Posted by Narnia (Member # 1071) on :
 
Yeah, even Brahms can't quite pull off the same effect. Hence the nickname "Wannabe."
 

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