DAILY DOSE of BEETHOVEN (August 21, 2020)
Although many scholars believe that Beethovenn's late period begins around 1819, they will often admit that it begins earlier after the 1815 defeat of republicanism in Europe under the Congress of Vienna.
This five-voiced fugue dates from 1817. It is the only work he completed for string quintet in his late period, published after his death in 1827. It strikes us as an exercise in the limits to which he was to push his fugal writing in the future.