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THE 'GROSSE FUGE': AN ANALYSIS
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254 MUSIC AND LETTERS
qv w~ ~ ~ ~~($ (t~
C s)
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THE 'GROSSE FUGE': AN ANALYSIS 255
Of these subjects, the lower one shown in the quotation is the main
theme. It acts almost as a leit motiv in a Wagner opera.
There are four individual sections in this fugue:
(1) Bars 31-58. A normal exposition of the double-subject (to bar
47). The fifth entry of the themes (50) is followed by a modulation
into E flat.
(2) Bars 58-109. Development, in two parts:
(i) 58-79. E flat to F major.
(ii) 79-108. F to D ininor.
An accompanying moto perpetuo, beginning thus-
EX2 (Ba',s)
brings energy into the music: it ceases in bar 94, at the point where the
final piece of working-out starts.
The third entry of the subjects (bar 68) is in G minor. The main
theme of the work (quotation 1) effects regularly a modulation to the
key a tone above, which modulation is resolved back into the tonic or
the dominant when the theme concludes. Thus in the first statement
of the theme the music, starting in B flat, enters C minor, and then
returns to B flat. Now with the music in G mninor, this interior
modulation, carried out accordirng to plan, would turn the music into
A minor. That key is impossible, and so Beethoven inflects the music
into A flat. The change brings about one of those rich cadences of
the ' Neapolitan Sixth ' which have so noble an effect in Bach's earlier
organ compositions. It also for a moment invests the rough, agitated
upper theme with a softer character; so that this incident in the fugue
becomes one of the ' touches of human beauty and feeling which
listeners feel the first time they hear the musii-
(Or 6,9)
A _
(3) Bars 111-138. The 12-8 moto perpetuo of the second section of
this movement modifies itself into a little figure in the anapaestic
rhythm:*
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256 MUSIC AND LETTERS
(B&r. 3i.)
Ex~ _
s---F ~J"
The music of this G flat moderato does not call for explanation. It
is lightly fugal in respect of the main theme, and it employs the stretto.
The close (223-232) is a vigorous unison tutti on the counter-subject,
,which settles upon a long cadence in B flat minor, where the last beat
of all contains an inexpressibly lovely inflection back into B flat.
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THE 'GROSSE FUGE': AN ANAILYSIS 257
III
_ A
Ex>(B&r 2k)
IV
\ l t~~~~~~~~~~~~Ak I* E
r-C __ L . I _
P?E re - f-fl ,a v f,
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258 MUSIC AND LETTERS
E:x 9 3 5
The cadence into E flat at bar 414 is the centre point of the A flat
movement. It is also the place where the main theme ends its work
in a condition of detachment. The remainder of the A flat movement
consists of:
(1) A fantasia on the two subjects (414-452). The material is (a)
the theme of the B flat movement, eased now into the iambic rhythm
of quaver-crotchet, and (b) a fragment (inverted) of the main theme:
.W r - . i: .i I l
This is the rapturous moinent of the ' Grosse Fuge,
achievement of ecstatic emotion.
(2) A very solid continuation of the foregoing. The key is A flat
again. The opening motiv of the main theme is powerfully active,
and the other theme, altering its nature (or rather, recovering some-
thing it had in the latter portions of parts 2 and 4 of the B flat move-
ment), both ascends and descends. The music moves to a dominant
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THE 'GROSSE FUGE': AN ANALYSIS 259
pedal, and with the coining of the pedal the counter-subject derived
from the little 6-8 scherzo returns.
(3) The finish of the A fiat movement is a coda based on the main
theme as used in the moderato. This passage (493-510) is a summary
of the B flat, G flat and A flat movements. Its second half (501-510)
is a repeat of its first half. The melodic counter-subject is present,
also the opening motive of the B flat theme, now eased still further
into a rhythm of equal semiquavers. The latter appears in alternate
bars during the first half of the passage. In the second half it is
continuous.
This second moderato ends with a 6-4 5-3 cadence in A flat (510-511),
from which the music makes its way back into B flat by a series of
quiet, but intensely dvnamic, chords.
B FLAT (533-742).
The little scherzo movement (III) is repeated, to lead to a rhapsody
or fantasia in which Beethoven reaches one of his peaks of tonal beauty
and musical expression. The rhapsody begins at bar 565 with a
soatenuto that reflects, perhaps in a mystical manner, the main theme;
and this so8tenuto passes at bar 581 into a similar ' vision of the
theme, in which the spirit of the other theme can be felt:
In bars 597-605 the 'cello and the viola play the motive of the theme
pissicato, and then comes what may perhaps strike all students as the
spiritual climax of the ' Grosse Fug'e.' At bar 609 the theme enters,
piani8simo, in a high register, accompanied by sustained chords. The
key is B flat. But the final inflexion into the close on the tonic is
deferred; for at 12~ ~~chord
bar 017 the ion,58
of A minor is taken, and at bar 620
the leading-note of the key of B flat is bent back upon G sharp, so
that for a moment the music rests in the puire key of A minor. The
cadence when it arrives (627-636) is expressed in ,short sharp chords
that at first strike in on the up-beats.
The remainder of the work is isimple. The lofty 8ostenuto of bars
585-600 is resumed (bars 637-666). Then the mind is turned back to
earlier conditions and circuimstances by a couple of reminiscences,
one of the B flat movement, the other of the mnoderato, after whieb
the theme is presented vigorously in the forms used in the A flat movE,
ment and the little scherzo. The latter opens into another quiet and
spacious presentation of the theme as it was given in the sentence that
touched A minor. The trilling cadence is played with for a while.
And at last the ' Grosse Fuge ' ends with the two themes in association
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260 MUSIC AND LETTERS
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THE 'GROSSE FUGE': AN ANALYSIS 261
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