♫ Now, when I say that we are “home”, I don’t mean to suggest that the conflict of the piece is behind us, that things will now be straightforward. Oh, no. The launch of this fugue has a definite, “let the games begin” quality. Given all that has preceded it – the titanic nature of the first movement, the epic tragedy of the slow movement, the harmonic tension of the whole bloody thing – this fugal finale, to put the proper capstone on the piece, needs to be both horrendously complicated and manically joyous. It fits both criteria, and then some. So, the horrendous complication of this fugue is attributable, in large part, to the subject itself. It is composed of three distinct components, each of which is, at various points in the fugue, isolated, manipulated, and subjected to every imaginable variation. Here is that subject. ♫ So, the three components. First you have the upward leap, followed by the trill. ♫ Note that the interval of the leap – reminiscent of the very opening of the sonata – is a tenth, really just a third with an octave thrown in. ♫ So that is already on message. Next you have those two short little phrase fragments (PLAY (USE TAKE 18 )) which are equally on message, outlining falling thirds. ♫ And then finally, off-message, off-script, off—the-wall, there is the third component: ♫ After the very segmented nature of the first two components, this third one is a run-on, labyrinthine series of sixteenth notes. And that, really, is the main reason that this fugue is so nearly incomprehensible. Just the fact of there being so many components to the subject already makes it difficult to follow the plot. But the fact that the third and longest component moves so bloody FAST, that it zigs and zags, that its shape is so haphazard – when you have that going on in multiple voices simultaneously, it makes for quite the cacophony! It ensures that this fugue is both dazzling and dizzying. To give you a sense of that dazzling and dizzying cacophony, let me play the opening of the fugue – from the first entrance of each of the three voices, through to the first modulation to D flat Major, the first full “paragraph” of the fugue, if you will. ♫ So, let me try to highlight a few points, to try to bring some order to the chaos. First of all, that leap of a tenth ♫ is everywhere – while all three components of the subject come into regular play, that one is an absolute fixation. Listen again to the last little bit of the opening paragraph. ♫ The tenth gets bounced back and forth from one voice to another like a ping-pong ball. Because that leap is so large, awkward, ungainly, its incessant repetition really exemplifies the craggy, bloody-minded quality of this fugue. Now, listen once more to the entrance of the second voice – not so much for that second voice itself, but for the countersubject in the left hand. ♫ So, there are two components here, both of which come into play throughout this fugue with nearly as much regularity as the subject itself. First of all, there is this strong, angular rhythm. ♫ And then, different as can be, there is the legato, eighth note line. ♫ Let me play a transition passage from a slightly later point in the fugue. ♫ The fugue subject makes a brief appearance, but it is those two counter-motives that feature again and again. As if the subject, with ITS three components, wasn’t enough to make this fugue dense and complicated – Beethoven keeps piling on the materials.
