Your opinions, please.

[Matt3737]

[video=youtube_share;6s0Mp7LFI-k]http://youtu.be/6s0Mp7LFI-k[/video]

Since this is a forum of dedicated introverts, I'm very interested in your opinions regarding one of Beethoven's most infamous pieces. I've been deeply fascinated with it for quite some time recently. See also wikipedia's article for more information if interested: Grand Fugue

 

[Peace]

Art is the means by which emotion is conveyed.

When I listen to music I observe how it makes me feel, and try to grasp the emotions that the composer was trying to convey.

This particular piece makes me feel like I am struggling. Almost like I am clawing at the ground in a desperate attempt to avoid falling into a bottomless hole. Every time I feel I make some progress, I slip backward and I am left hanging on with nothing but the sound of my own breath and heartbeat. There I hang at the precipice between oblivion and the seemingly senseless struggle for life. The strange thing is that the way it ends leads me to feel like I choose to let go and descend into nothingness of my own free will. That is why I feel this music is rank with man's contempt for mortality and the inevitable reality that at some point he must succumb to it.

Of course, that is just my own subjective experience of this music, but that might give you some idea of why others might not like it.

 

[hk427f3]

Some parts were okay, but a lot of it was serious wtf.

 

[the]

I like it, but I cant get into it.

 

[arbygil]

I think it's amazing.

It has the feel of something far more modern, as if it were 50 years too soon; I could tell this was written in the latter period of his life, perhaps near the end of it when he may have been racing to meet those last creative moments of his life. It feels inspired; as if he was on the verge of something new and he was daring to try it.

Just my opinion, though. This is actually the first time I've heard it, despite liking a lot of classical music pieces.

 

[arbygil]

This is one of Bartok's pieces which is far more encompassing, but you get what I mean; Bartok was later on - but you can hear the same types of discords and interesting melody changes, but in a fuller, richer sense (written around 1909):

[video=youtube;40S-2mctuYo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40S-2mctuYo&feature=fvst[/video]

 

[GracieRuth]

I normally like Beethoven, but I don't care for this particular piece.

First, it overuses the rhythm three-ONE (two) three ONE (two). At least Vivaldi knew enough to keep his Domine Fili Unigenite short.

Second, I look for melodies or themes that are repeated. Call me a hard core romantic -- there needs to be an element of a "sing along" tune. Maybe if I listened to it more than once, I might find something, but at least at first listening, this is simply absent.

Third: there are huge parts of it that are simply dissonant, and don't resolve. I don't mind dissonance -- it is the resolution of dissonance that stirs our emotions so much. But if dissonance just goes on and on? It's like a story where the plot plods on and on without a central conflict to resolve.

Quite honestly, this song reminds me of a lot of modern classical, after existentialism and nihilism had impacted musical theory. Here is the rub: if a composer believes that life is just meaningless drivel, he is going to write music that is meaningless drivel. And don't start on "personal meaning" -- what makes a song or poem or book a CLASSIC is that it clicks with a large number of people over long periods of time. The very fact that this NOT a song remembered 200 years later deprives it of "classic" status.

It's quite possible that the song simply made a bad first impression and I might like it more over time. I'd definitely prefer this song to the Rap Crap I'm often forced to listen to when out in public.

 

[Matt3737]

That is a very beautiful piece, arbygil. I had never heard that one before. Thank you for sharing that.

It seemed very clearly melodramatic throughout with those emphatic and moving flourishes. I was struck very strongly at the amazing energy at the 4:20 mark; that was intense! And then also the strong rise and elegant dispersion beginning at the 7:40 mark on through to its finish.

 

[Peace]

This is one of Bartok's pieces which is far more encompassing, but you get what I mean; Bartok was later on - but you can hear the same types of discords and interesting melody changes, but in a fuller, richer sense (written around 1909):

[video=youtube;40S-2mctuYo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40S-2mctuYo&feature=fvst[/video]

For some strange reason that music makes me think of the Titanic.

Gosh I wish I had learned more about music in school.

 

[aeon]

I would write more, but I cannot find language to express myself. I will simply say I enjoyed it, very much so.


Namaste,
Ian

 

[hiagen]

I would write more, but I cannot find language to express myself. I will simply say I enjoyed it, very much so.


Namaste,
Ian

Same with me.

 

[Matt3737]

I know I'm necro'ing this thread, but I've always been interested in this piece for reasons other than the piece itself and I simply dismissed discussing it further until now.

I am not a big music buff except as it pertains to symbolism and structure in which it would be a small piece of a bigger structure.

This work was composed by Beethoven late in his life during which he was completely deaf.

A massive double fugue, it originally served as the final movement of his Quartet No. 13 in B♭ major (Op. 130) but he replaced the fugue with a new finale and published the Grosse Fuge 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.

This was 1 year after his completion of his 9th symphony. His most famous and highly regarded work.

Completed in 1824, the symphony is one of the best-known works of the Western classical repertoire. Among critics, it is almost universally considered to be among Beethoven's greatest works, and is considered by some to be the greatest piece of music ever written.

The importance of his Grand Fugue and its misunderstood value I think is best illustrated through a classic work of film in which it was never even implemented, rather his 9th symphony was used instead. The film is Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange. Beethoven is a key symbol in this movie and underscores the aestheticization of violence when Alex is no longer able to listen to Beethoven without excruciating pain (How much more so was it to Beethoven to no longer be able to hear his own music?).

I think it must assuredly be the greatest blunder in the history of film to not have included the piece as the closing theme music. I often wonder if this was intentionally so, but the mere thought seems to want to drive me to insanity. The closing theme was Singin' in the Rain, which was improvisationally chosen by Malcolm McDowell as a contrast to the rape scene in which it took place and a symbolic reminder later in the film, so that Kubrick immediately bought the rights to use the song in the film and chose it to end with also.

Beethoven originally composed the Große Fuge as the final movement of his String Quartet No. 13 (Op. 130). When the work was first performed, the audience demanded encores of only two of the middle movements of the quartet. Beethoven, enraged, was reported to have growled, "And why didn't they encore the Fugue? That alone should have been repeated! Cattle! Asses!"

However, the fugue was so demanding of contemporary performers and unpopular with audiences that Beethoven's publisher, Matthias Artaria, urged him to write a new finale for the string quartet. Beethoven, although notorious for his stubborn personality and indifference to public opinion or taste, acquiesced to his publisher's request on this occasion. He composed a replacement finale in late 1826. In May 1827, about two months after Beethoven's death, Artaria published the first edition of Op. 130 with the new finale, and the Große Fuge as Op. 133, as well as a four-hand piano arrangement, Op. 134.

 

[SealHammer]

I wouldn't read too deeply into it. It's just a nice piece and a fantastic example of the kind of sound you can produce with thoughtful and deliberate counterpoint. It's a shame Beethoven never got to see it become popular, it was just a little too far ahead of its time (as is the case with many famous historical works of art).