09 Fugues
Late Beethoven shown his musical wisdom in the fugues of his late piano sonatas.
The final movements of op. 106 is a fugue. Though the fugue is just a 3 part counterpoint, its texture are so rich and complicated that it become one of the most difficult fugue in the world.
I am very suprised by the extraordinary individuality each of the parts can be made by such a theme with such highly chromatic nature. with the absence of some characteristic leaps, the theme can easily blur each part and turn it to a mess of mixture of notes. However, each of the parts can be identified at a suprising ease!
with the trill to announce the entering of the theme. everything seemed to be solved at once. in the middle of the fugue lied a more simple, tranquill fusue which resembles the fugue in op. 110.
Brilliant refinement turns the fugue into a crystal. the three layers are so distinct in these tranquillo passages to show Beethoven's wisdom and how he spent his life on music.
Very duifferent from Bach's fuga, they are so romantic and yet well disciplined. The conflicts are put on stage so naked that one may think that ugly, thanks to the high chromaticism and the trill in the theme. (the few bars just before the "sempre dolce e cantabile" section is my favorite)
Beethoven is so brave to uncover the conflicts in the music, to reveal the human side of music as he did in his late symphonies. And yet, he showed in his fugues that he is able to create music of extreme beauty ane tranquillity where the tranquillity is not a plain one but the one comes, or Beethoven hoped to come after all the thunders and storms. That's the Beethoven I can see from his late works.