@@smalin There’s plenty of composers I’m not keen on, but I wouldn’t want to wish death on them. Schubert went way too soon especially with what he composed the last 2 years of his life.
I know of no classical composer that sounds more modern than Beethoven. He could have composed this in 2022. What a gifted composer! Thanks for sharing this with us, Smalin!
This has been one of my favorite fugues ever since you first showed us this pieces years ago. Absolute masterpiece. Thanks for the upload, and great work on the score!
It has been my belief that most people cared too little about my favorite part of Grosse Fuge, the "half-themes" a bit before the restatement (starting from 14:05 in this video), but I'm glad that smalin is one of the few that didn't. Also, if anyone knows of any other piece employing this "half-theme" technique somewhere, please do inform me.
What I find strange is that there are people who think you're not being truthful when you say you like it. They hear it the way you did at first, and think that everybody hears it that way, and that there's nothing about it to like, and that people who say it's good have a reason for not wanting to be honest.
Man, looking at these comments... some people don't have the ears for this piece, so they decide to deride it. Imagine not liking coffee because it's too bitter: fine, drink what you want, but don't go around saying coffee is the worst beverage ever.
The problem is that people assume that what they're hearing is the same as what other people are hearing. For most sounds in our environment, this is a reasonable assumption, but for music, it's very much not. We don't make the mistake with language (and assume that a language we don't speak is just a bunch of nonsense sounds), but that's because language operates in the real world; you might not understand what people are saying, but you can tell that they're engaging in the same sort of activity you are when you're conversing in a language you do understand. Music is internal and non-verbal; our experience of music is fundamentally private, and it's easy to think that it's "just another non-speech sound" that everybody hears in more or less the same way. I wrote a page about the issue (www.musanim.com/GrosseFuge/UnderstandingBeethovensGrosseFuge.html), but I don't think the people who need it are reading it (and/or understanding it), since nobody's commented that they got anything useful from it.
@@smalinthis is one of the most insightful and wise comments I have ever read. I discovered this piece thanks to you many many years ago. You spoiled me forever in listening to this piece looking for the harmony and pure pitch more than the instrument timbres, overtones and interplay many quartets enjoy. I felt closer to the truth by the flow and timing than the resonance of the venue or the pure expression of a player technique, more from quick dry decays and the patterns of notes, more in the structure than I am from the virtuosity of players and warm feelings of good music. I listen to it alert, and it works this way for me.
I first heard this from your 2010 version over 10 years ago. I didn't really care for it back then and haven't even heard it again until now. Now I love it. It's perfect : )
@@smalin They are unable to listen or understand. It might take them years.....They may never make it and that can be discouraging. Your video presentation might help.
I developed a lot of new techniques in the five years since I last worked on this piece, but only a couple of them seemed like an improvement over what I did back then.
Thank you so much. Your 2o1o version of this piece introduced me to The Great Fugue. Still one of my all time favorite pieces of music, and works on your channel. Thank you so much for revisiting this Sublime work -
I don't think this is musical nonsense, it has beautiful melody and harmony. Also I think Ive noticed thee strettos and more great fugal techniques. But I don't like it because it doesn't have the sense of organization like in Bach fugues. Musical depth is very important to me but I don't think it must clash with presentability, not always. I read your post also and comparing music to language is accurate. And yes I'm aware that a lot of Bach fugues are not presentable and I still love them. All im saying presentability combined with complexity is something I appreciate. And I wish this was at least a little bit more presentable is all.
I'm not sure what you mean by "structurally exact," but (barring mistakes, which almost always happen) every note in the score is shown in the animation.
@@smalin Votre façon de représenter les différents moments, développements selon des motifs adéquats est sûrement exact d'un point de vue de l'analyse et de la structure.
Maybe it is not many instruments but too much overtones. The instruments are too noisy, the overtones invade other instruments notes, as if it needs a different orchestration to avoid such a clash of sounds. That is the reason I like more the sound of the previous version in the channel. And the same reason I don’t like too many of the recorded ones: too much sound unrelated to the main lines and a tempo a bit too elastic for the structure and flow to be really clear. It is confusing to me and makes the piece noisy, strident and more atonal in an unpleasant way. Other listeners love the instruments colours and the players games so there is a version for everyone I suppose. But I am not sure this piece tolerates that normal treatment.
It’s hard for a string orchestra to match the interpretational nuance, clarity and coherence of a string quartet, but the raw strength of the ensemble is a better match to the Herculean demands of a piece like this.
Way back in 2001, Doug Briscoe invited Susan Davenny Wyner and the New England String Ensemble to the WGBH studio to give a live concert. They played an arrangement of the Große Fuge for small string ensemble which had an excellent balance of forcefulness in the fortissimo passages and sufficient crispness elsewhere. They also played the Mozart K 546 Adagio and Fugue, and (with a guest harpist) the adagietto from Mahler's 5th symphony. I don't remember whether Doug or Susan mentioned whose arrangement of the Große Fuge they played; I'll have to play through the conversational interludes in my off-the-air recording of the program.
He heard hell and horrible music and stupid people taking over the music world to collectively ruin everything that music was built upon in only a couple years, becayse "music is for expressing yourself and emotions" 🤡
Les musiciens évoquent souvent cette fugue lorsqu'il est question de savoir si certains ont pu approcher le Grand Maître. J'ai du mal à l'écouter en entière. Ça fait plusieurs fois que je viens et j'ai conscience que je n'en comprends qu'une petite partie, mais si c'est ça, la fugue qui se rapproche le plus de celles de l'Incontestable, alors peut-être que Beethoven aurait dû plus étudier notre Immense Cantor, et ainsi aurait pu laisser la question de la suprématie de Bach ouverte...
It's obviously a technically masterpiece. But to me at least, it seems more like a statement where Beethoven shouts at the top of it's lungs "See how smart I am? I can write a monster fugue too!", and less a blended mix of art and technique. LIke if one put all the fugal techniques of the Art of Fugue into a box, shook it, dumped it out, and played the result. lol
I feel like if that were the case and the große fuge was just a dry academic show-off exercise, then the piece wouldn't have a nearly 4 minute long build up and emotional climax from 9:19 - 13:06
it is much better, yes. But not to some ears. It took a while for it is so different that we're used to, some interpretations are quite weak for it is hard to play, I first understand this work when I heard it the version by Alban Berg Quartet (ruclips.net/video/13ygvpIg-S0/видео.html), this is played harsh and shrill. Maybe give it a listen.
@@smalin probably something stupid, like this piece. He made this piece as an experiment and the rational public of his time didn't want to listen to experiments, but stupid modern people do.
You clicked on a video that has the word 'Beethoven' in the title, thought it was a Bach piece AND you think Beethoven is stupid and irrational; interesting…
You know Beethoven was a fantastic, boundary-busting composer when people of 2022 think something written in the 1820´s is too dissonant for them.
I think the main problem with people not appreciating this piece is that the very simple subjects tend to get buried in the rather dense harmony.
I wish Beethoven had lived another 10 years. The sheer will of the man was incredible
Are there composers you think lived exactly long enough, or too long?
@@smalin There’s plenty of composers I’m not keen on, but I wouldn’t want to wish death on them. Schubert went way too soon especially with what he composed the last 2 years of his life.
@@smalin Sibelius? Last 20 years of his life just got pissed
I know of no classical composer that sounds more modern than Beethoven. He could have composed this in 2022. What a gifted composer! Thanks for sharing this with us, Smalin!
This has been one of my favorite fugues ever since you first showed us this pieces years ago. Absolute masterpiece. Thanks for the upload, and great work on the score!
Inspiring... all the colors, shapes, movements come together to rly convey his music
It has been my belief that most people cared too little about my favorite part of Grosse Fuge, the "half-themes" a bit before the restatement (starting from 14:05 in this video), but I'm glad that smalin is one of the few that didn't.
Also, if anyone knows of any other piece employing this "half-theme" technique somewhere, please do inform me.
whaaaat!?!?
a return to this one yes!!!
Such a great performance.
When I first heared this song I didn't like it, but now I feel that the more and more I hear the more I love it. I found this very strange indeed.
What I find strange is that there are people who think you're not being truthful when you say you like it. They hear it the way you did at first, and think that everybody hears it that way, and that there's nothing about it to like, and that people who say it's good have a reason for not wanting to be honest.
Man, looking at these comments... some people don't have the ears for this piece, so they decide to deride it. Imagine not liking coffee because it's too bitter: fine, drink what you want, but don't go around saying coffee is the worst beverage ever.
The problem is that people assume that what they're hearing is the same as what other people are hearing. For most sounds in our environment, this is a reasonable assumption, but for music, it's very much not. We don't make the mistake with language (and assume that a language we don't speak is just a bunch of nonsense sounds), but that's because language operates in the real world; you might not understand what people are saying, but you can tell that they're engaging in the same sort of activity you are when you're conversing in a language you do understand. Music is internal and non-verbal; our experience of music is fundamentally private, and it's easy to think that it's "just another non-speech sound" that everybody hears in more or less the same way. I wrote a page about the issue (www.musanim.com/GrosseFuge/UnderstandingBeethovensGrosseFuge.html), but I don't think the people who need it are reading it (and/or understanding it), since nobody's commented that they got anything useful from it.
@@smalinthis is one of the most insightful and wise comments I have ever read. I discovered this piece thanks to you many many years ago. You spoiled me forever in listening to this piece looking for the harmony and pure pitch more than the instrument timbres, overtones and interplay many quartets enjoy. I felt closer to the truth by the flow and timing than the resonance of the venue or the pure expression of a player technique, more from quick dry decays and the patterns of notes, more in the structure than I am from the virtuosity of players and warm feelings of good music. I listen to it alert, and it works this way for me.
I think it's THEIR opinion but they MUST NOT MAKE OTHERS THINK THEIR OPINION IS THE CORRECT ONE AND THE REST ARE WRONG.
Also @@smalin I agree with you
Started sobbing for a bit. Great rendition.
Wow. I discovered this many years ago when I encountered your earlier version. Thanks for all of your work over the years.
Absolutly love this fugue, what a great animation of it
I first heard this from your 2010 version over 10 years ago. I didn't really care for it back then and haven't even heard it again until now. Now I love it. It's perfect : )
What would you say to people who say that it's meaningless, ugly, that Beethoven didn't know what he was doing because he was deaf, etc. ?
@@smalin I don't know what to say. Listen to more music.
@@AJBlueJay, I agree with you.
@@smalin They are unable to listen or understand. It might take them years.....They may never make it and that can be discouraging. Your video presentation might help.
@@jonnsmusich beautiful comment
I think that this is my favourite of your animations of his op. 133 yet!
I developed a lot of new techniques in the five years since I last worked on this piece, but only a couple of them seemed like an improvement over what I did back then.
This is a contender for the most extraordinary and outstanding video you have ever made!
It was written in 1826. It sounds like it could have been released last year.
No, it doesn't
Music for the eyes, as well as the ears. It doubles the experience and appreciation. ... a unique form of cooperative artistry.
Thank you so much. Your 2o1o version of this piece introduced me to The Great Fugue. Still one of my all time favorite pieces of music, and works on your channel. Thank you so much for revisiting this Sublime work -
Great work with the animation! The way you presented the theme was just like we hear it
I love your whole große fugue project!
ANOTHER GREAT FUGUE I LOVE YOU
That was so beautiful ;-; The music is so good. So much beauty ;-; Also some parts looks like stargate scene from 2001...
Amazing animation which really helps to guide through the complexity of this fiendish work - thank you!
If you're not a subscriber, you might find this guide useful: www.musanim.com/RUclipsHighlights/
And for those who are subscribers?
10:37 - 11:07
Oh, I wasn't expecting to see yet another version of this piece. But this is more than welcome considering how amazing that composition is.
For me this piece is T I M E L E S S.
very helpful illumination!
Excellent music and video 🎶
Love this
Great video! 12:10 has always been my favorite part
it's fantastic. Also when played with piano: ruclips.net/video/Tp1DH9--vGo/видео.html (11:30)
Давно Бетховена не было!)))
Arranged for string orchestra, it reminds me very much of a Bernard Hermann score.
Why didnt Beethoven make it longer 😔
This is always so fucking beautiful
It sounds off to me, and yet I can't get enough of it. Can't explain. I feel the same way with minimalism.
I don't think this is musical nonsense, it has beautiful melody and harmony. Also I think Ive noticed thee strettos and more great fugal techniques. But I don't like it because it doesn't have the sense of organization like in Bach fugues. Musical depth is very important to me but I don't think it must clash with presentability, not always. I read your post also and comparing music to language is accurate. And yes I'm aware that a lot of Bach fugues are not presentable and I still love them. All im saying presentability combined with complexity is something I appreciate. And I wish this was at least a little bit more presentable is all.
I can't say if it is structurally exact but I trust smalin... but the tunes have a problem: too many violins on each part.
I'm not sure what you mean by "structurally exact," but (barring mistakes, which almost always happen) every note in the score is shown in the animation.
@@smalin Votre façon de représenter les différents moments, développements selon des motifs adéquats est sûrement exact d'un point de vue de l'analyse et de la structure.
Maybe it is not many instruments but too much overtones. The instruments are too noisy, the overtones invade other instruments notes, as if it needs a different orchestration to avoid such a clash of sounds. That is the reason I like more the sound of the previous version in the channel. And the same reason I don’t like too many of the recorded ones: too much sound unrelated to the main lines and a tempo a bit too elastic for the structure and flow to be really clear. It is confusing to me and makes the piece noisy, strident and more atonal in an unpleasant way. Other listeners love the instruments colours and the players games so there is a version for everyone I suppose. But I am not sure this piece tolerates that normal treatment.
This cocaine
(bleep)
How many times have you reworked this piece?
www.musanim.com/GrosseFuge/ … tells the history of this project.
Your work is inestimable, Smalin.
Thank you.
The original instrumentation of a string quartet sounds better than a string orchestra arrangement like this one. The animation is good though.
It’s hard for a string orchestra to match the interpretational nuance, clarity and coherence of a string quartet, but the raw strength of the ensemble is a better match to the Herculean demands of a piece like this.
I think a small-ish string orchestra like this one provides the best of both worlds
Way back in 2001, Doug Briscoe invited Susan Davenny Wyner and the New England String Ensemble to the WGBH studio to give a live concert. They played an arrangement of the Große Fuge for small string ensemble which had an excellent balance of forcefulness in the fortissimo passages and sufficient crispness elsewhere. They also played the Mozart K 546 Adagio and Fugue, and (with a guest harpist) the adagietto from Mahler's 5th symphony. I don't remember whether Doug or Susan mentioned whose arrangement of the Große Fuge they played; I'll have to play through the conversational interludes in my off-the-air recording of the program.
Beethoven heard the future...
He heard hell and horrible music and stupid people taking over the music world to collectively ruin everything that music was built upon in only a couple years, becayse "music is for expressing yourself and emotions" 🤡
@@Whatismusic123 that is what happened to classical music...
Les musiciens évoquent souvent cette fugue lorsqu'il est question de savoir si certains ont pu approcher le Grand Maître.
J'ai du mal à l'écouter en entière. Ça fait plusieurs fois que je viens et j'ai conscience que je n'en comprends qu'une petite partie, mais si c'est ça, la fugue qui se rapproche le plus de celles de l'Incontestable, alors peut-être que Beethoven aurait dû plus étudier notre Immense Cantor, et ainsi aurait pu laisser la question de la suprématie de Bach ouverte...
www.musanim.com/GrosseFuge/UnderstandingBeethovensGrosseFuge.html
It's obviously a technically masterpiece. But to me at least, it seems more like a statement where Beethoven shouts at the top of it's lungs "See how smart I am? I can write a monster fugue too!", and less a blended mix of art and technique. LIke if one put all the fugal techniques of the Art of Fugue into a box, shook it, dumped it out, and played the result. lol
www.musanim.com/GrosseFuge/UnderstandingBeethovensGrosseFuge.html
Even if its the case I dont think it should make something less beautiful non technically. The composers intention dont matter to me when Im listening
Honestly I have to agree. Beethoven as a composer was no slouch, but for me personally Grosse Fugue isn't among my favorite pieces.
Also keep in mind that Beethoven himself called this piece "somewhat free and somewhat scholarly", which jives rather well with what I said above.
I feel like if that were the case and the große fuge was just a dry academic show-off exercise, then the piece wouldn't have a nearly 4 minute long build up and emotional climax from 9:19 - 13:06
That Fugue is not so great
It’s too short.
it is much better, yes. But not to some ears. It took a while for it is so different that we're used to, some interpretations are quite weak for it is hard to play, I first understand this work when I heard it the version by Alban Berg Quartet (ruclips.net/video/13ygvpIg-S0/видео.html), this is played harsh and shrill. Maybe give it a listen.
@@nassera no, it is just a pathetic experiment gone wrong.
And you think you're a better judge of this than Beethoven (and all the musicians, like Stravinsky, who think it's fabulous), right?
@@smalin Stravinsky was a moron, beethoven was senile
I clicked because I thought it was bach's great fugue, but too bad it is beethoven's worst piece instead
Do you know what Beethoven’s said about people who didn’t appreciate this piece?
@@smalin i want to know what he said
@@smalin probably something stupid, like this piece. He made this piece as an experiment and the rational public of his time didn't want to listen to experiments, but stupid modern people do.
You clicked on a video that has the word 'Beethoven' in the title, thought it was a Bach piece AND you think Beethoven is stupid and irrational; interesting…
This is probably the comment of a Baroque snob or a troll.