1826, composed an entirely new finale for Op. 130—his final completed composition. Beethoven had previously juxtaposed slow and fast tempi within one movement, but along with these contrarieties, the opening movement explores contrasting textures in a powerful adaptation of sonata form. Lewis Lockwood aptly likens the large-scale contrasts presented by the sequence of movements to “a string of pearls of different colors and facets of light.” The super-compact, major-minor scherzo and trio that follows is answered by a gentle, short intermezzo that posits a different kind of “scherzo-ing.” Another dramatic opposition emerges with the transition from the characterful Alla danza tedesca (in G major) to the slow movement in E-flat major— music of such inward, unconditional beauty that it was chosen for the Golden Record sent into space by the Voyager missions of the late 1970s. Beethoven suggests a vocal and even operatic connection by calling it a cavatina. The replacement finale, better proportioned to the whole and a counterweight to the first movement, provides graceful and witty closure but still incorporates subtle references to the Grosse Fuge. Depending on which finale is chosen, Op. 130 becomes two vastly different works.
Grosse Fuge in B-flat major Op. 133 This mammoth “grand fugue” is actually a series of movement- like sections that are collapsed and condensed into one interlinked span. For all the connotations of archaism and strict discipline that the concept of the fugue elicits, Beethoven develops an unprecedented design of extraordinary freedom and astonishing juxtapositions. What’s more, not all of the Grosse Fuge is actually even fugal. In the opening Overtura, for example, Beethoven gives a preview of the whole. Starting with a unison statement by the strings, he presents different guises of the knotty fugal theme. The actual theme is stated at the end of the Overtura, and, after a pause, the fugue proper commences. An agitated countertheme plays against the theme throughout the first section. Forceful accents and un relenting rhythmic propulsion contribute to the music’s fierce, aggressive character. The Grosse Fuge can be parsed in myriad ways—as a sequence of variations, a meditation on Hegelian dialectic, a power struggle, a mammoth sonata movement, or a condensed multi-movement
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