DAILY DOSE of BEETHOVEN (June 2, 2020)

Beethoven wrote over his Missa Solemnis: From the heart, it must return to the heart. We examined two sections of that great work (May 23 & 24 posts), and they proved his sentiment to be sincere. When his basic idea is made clear to us, everything falls into place.

The same is true of his most contrapuntally complex and intellectually advanced work, the Grosse Fuge (Great Fugue). When understood, and properly played, it moves both the heart and the mind. It is a life-changer. To do this, one has to get the idea of following the transformation and change, rather than identifying recurrences of fixed themes. Without that, it can be overwhelming, and there are still music professors today, who claim to find it unintelligible! We say that we can all do better than music professors, if we engage our hearts and minds!

Let us begin, by posing a challenge. The Grosse Fuge, and the 4th movement of the Ninth Symphony, are similar in many ways, though they often take opposite approaches to the same problem.

Here, we replay the short video from April 23rd, 2020, on the introduction to the 4th movement of the Ninth Symphony.

Beethoven has, on numerous occasions, invited us into his creative workshop. Among them are the introduction to the 4th movement of the Ninth Symphony, the opening of the Grosse Fuge, and the beginning of the 4th movement of his Hammerklavier Sonata, Op.106”.

The Grosse Fuge opens with an Overtura (Overture) that invokes the principle of the introduction to the 4th movement of the Ninth Symphony, while following the "retrograde" pathway.

What makes it different, is the reversal of the time sequence. The introduction to the fourth movement of the "Ninth Symphony", reviews everything that has taken place up until that point, including the first 3 movements, and takes you right up to the discovery of the main theme—the Ode to Joy. It moves forward in time. The Overtura to the Grosse Fuge takes the opposite approach. It poses 4 drastically different versions of the main fugual subject, as if to ask the question, What kind of development could possibly account for that kind of change in a single theme?

Once one gets to know the piece a bit better, one realizes that those 4 different versions occur in the opposite order than they do in the piece. Versions 1, 2, 3, and 4 in the overture, are versions 4, 3, 2 and 1 in the entire piece. The overture ends, right where the double-fugue is ready to begin. Beethoven positions the changes in the theme backwards to how they occur in the piece. In a way, it is like a person looking backwards on their own life, from old age. Which of the four is the original form of this theme? Which is the real you? Or does the very process of change define what is the real you?

Each of us is a single, recognizable, unique individual for all of our lives. Yet, if we grow, intellectually, spiritually, and morally, we might look backwards, and not even recognize our earlier selves. But we might also see our earlier selves looking forward, and not liking everything about our future selves.

The issue then becomes change. Are the changes consistent with a life well lived? In this case, the theme, like the person, has to be recognizable as unique. We are the same unique physical being. Yet, when the changes are laid out in stark juxtaposition, as it does in the Overtura, we marvel at the question of what process of change made such wildly differing versions possible?

Besides re-posting the short video we ran on April 23rd, on the opening of the fourth movement of the "Ninth Symphony", we also provide an audio of the Overtura, to the Grosse Fuge.

This is not easy listening, but it is well worth the effort, and it will become clear as we proceed. If you sense that both of these excerpts represent the cognitive act of conceptualizing something new—a higher hypothesis that is both above and outside of the piece itself, then you are on the right track!

Opening of the 4th movement of Ninth Symphony:

Audio of Overtura: https://soundcloud.com/user-385773006/grosse-fuga-overtura