whilst ruminating about the grosse fuge ...i happened upon this article written in 1931 by sydney drew (on jstor). it is entitled: 'the grosse fuge': an analysis from music and letters, vol 12, no 3 (july 1931), pp 253-261
'this work of beethoven's exemplifies the kind of composition that eludes any established system of describing form. since it is a highly organic thing, it must appertain to one or more of the highly organic forms -- as the fugue, the sonata (first movement form), the variations, the fantasia (in bach's sense), the rondo (in beethoven's) and so forth. but, the moment we try to interpret it in the terms of any one of these classical forms, it breaks that form, however elastic we may make the form in order to bring it and the music into a reasonable agreement. even when we try to let the work suggest of its own accord a fashion of two or three of the forms, it is sure sooner or later to do something which asks us to incorporate still further familiar types of architecture, until we feel for a little while either that this work is formless, or that it is simply the manifestation of an attempt to adopt all forms to one end.
in such cases as this, we have to appeal to the spirit of the composition. if that spirit answers the appeal, everything becomes satisfactory. the work proves to be informed with reason and purpose throughout, and we see that the structure could not be other than it is, however peculiar, anomalous, or arbitrary it may be when tested of any of the set standards.
my own experience of the 'grosse fuge' has taught me that the work is formally perfect, in view of what the composer has to express. but my period of instruction was not brief or easy. even after somefifty hours of studying the score, i could not feel the central governing energy that brought the work into the shape it has, and so it still seemed as apparently rhapsodical, and indeed chaotic, as it had during the the moments when i first glanced at the pages. knowledge began to come to me, however, from the hour in which i realized the character and probable purpose of the passage from bar 351 to bar 414 (the passage that completes the first half of the big A-flat movement, leading the movement to its middle cadence in E-flat, and bringing about the return of the main theme of the big B-flat movement). in this passage i discovered the climax of all the preceding effort and labour; and with that discovery made, it was of course an easy matter to work backwards and forwards, until the entire thing became coherent -- that is orderly, or of perfect form.'
what do you think about this start? i want to read the rest of the article - but i don't have access to jstor. i actually copied the grosse fuge off of a site from the beethovenhaus. it's interesting because it's one of the last pieces beethoven wrote. (he wrote it for four hands). it has a death knell type of feeling. beethoven so deaf. so full of being 'musically pushed to the limit.' he was probably half sane and half crazy - but his music you still feel the old beethoven. just a shadow of his former self. i really liked this article after viewing some of the grosse fuge myself. it is a topic of which i want to study further - but possibly too deep for a two pager. unless you write of hard to understand music.
Topic: picking topic for music essay, need help