Mitch Friedfeld:

>I have to admit I am not "getting" the Grosse Fuge.  How do you
>say "unlistenable" in German?

I wonder if Beethoven "got it" for himself in his late quartets. 
For me, like other late works by composers of substance, I think they
were often times reaching beyond themselves.  I find this in works like
Bartok's 6th Quartet, or Copland's Inscape.  I don't feel a need to "get
it," but only a desire to try to "get it." Perhaps, that is the point.
While I have little notion of an afterlife, I truly find such works
trying to reach beyond life, and that they can represent the most profound
thoughts of our species.  As for life, I don't "get it" either, but I
keep trying to, and maybe that is the point there as well.

Karl

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