Beethoven: Große Fuge // MEREL QUARTET

Learn to play the songs you love: Merel Quartet, The Große Fuge (or Grosse Fuge, also known in English as Great Fugue or Grand Fugue), Op. 133, is a single-movement composition for string quartet by Ludwig van Beethoven. A massive double fugue, it was universally condemned by contemporary critics. A reviewer writing for Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung in 1826 described the fugue as “incomprehensible, like Chinese“ and “a confusion of Babel“. However critical opinion of the work has risen steadily since the beginning of the 20th century. The work is now considered among Beethoven’s greatest achievements. Igor Stravinsky said of it, “it is an absolutely contemporary piece of music that will be contemporary forever.“ The Große Fuge originally served as the final movement of his Quartet No. 13 in B♭ major (Op. 130), written in 1825. But Beethoven’s publisher, who was concerned about