Pizza Diavola

The weekend before last, M got me hooked on Beethoven’s late string quartets. I like Shostakovich and Bartok, and late Beethoven contains same elements I like in their music–unexpected leaps from one measure to the next, discordant modulations–only about a hundred years prior to the Modern composers and a hundred times more complicated and amazing. I haven’t listened to anything else for the past week and a half and the Grosse Fuge is always playing in my head: while making dinner, at work, waking up in the morning, thinking, etc. I went to the symphony last week and usually after a concert I’ll have that music in my head for the next few days. This time, I haven’t heard anything but the string quartets. They’re intense, beautiful, challenging, frightening, and cathartic. It’s music that stirs my emotions at a subconscious level in a way I’ve rarely experienced, especially with a recording and not a live performance. It touches the same parts of my mind that photography does and it’s such a relief to give into that wordless, creative side of my brain, which has so few outlets that it’s running rampant with Beethoven now.

My favorite piece out of the late string quartets is Grosse Fuge in Bb, which was the original ending for Op. 130 but proved unbearably awesome and so Beethoven’s publisher insisted that he write a new piece to replace Grosse Fuge as the final movement. It’s an incredibly complicated, intricate double fugue; rather than the standard structure of a single fugue line with the other lines playing variations and harmony, in Grosse Fuge there are TWO fugue lines that simultaneously serve as independent melodies and as harmonies to each other. O_O;; *

My first encounter with Grosse Fuge: there I was, innocently ironing and chatting with M while listening to Beethoven. All of a sudden, the music switched over to the next track and I was knocked head over heels.

P: what would i listen to if i wanted to hear the milieu of the time? [innocently toddling along]
P: for a comparison/contrast
P: OMG GROSSE FUGUE [Stark, thundering chords introduce Grosse Fuge. *falls ass over tea kettle*]
M: there’s a real dearth during the time he [Beethoven] was composing, actually
M: hahahahaha
M:
P: ahhhhhhhhh
M: an appropriate reaction

P: what is this suddenly mellow section around 5:00?
P: who is he trying to fool?
P: and the hints of wanting to break back out into psychotic-ness
M: mmm the BEST is the coda at the end
M: when he hints as if he’s going to start the whole thing over again
P: tease!
M:

P: …this stuff sounds borderline atonal
P: or at least key shifts like mad

P: auralgasm

P: that brief pause
M: idk, that part right around 9:00 is my fav
P: is just like … i need that temporary abatement
P: to catch my breath
M: yeah … beethoven is one of the great masters of extending dissonance and giving you just what you can handle
P: i am fairly certain this is more than i can handle
P: my brain is asploding

File at megaupload: Grosse Fuge in Bb, Op. 133, recorded by the Emerson String Quartet. The Grosse Fuge is on my list of things (sensual experiences, that is) that are better than sex.

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*Beethoven anecdote and fugal structure info from M.