Abstract:
The fugue movement in Beethoven’s D major sonata for cello and piano can be seen
as the beginning of his fugal fixation, and it can also be viewed as the critical
watershed between Beethoven’s middle and late period. This creative project outlines
the historical background, offers some theoretical analysis, and also addresses certain
interpretive challenges for the movement. The content focus is not only the setting of
a double fugue with its typical succession of subject and answer, but also techniques
of fugal composition such as changes of textures, stretto, and other aspects of this
fusion of retrospective and modernist tendencies.