Beethoven's Grosse Fuge, despite being misunderstood and under-appreciated for years, has earned a place of its own in the chamber music repertoire. Originally the final movement of his Op. 130 String Quartet in B-flat, Beethoven wrote another finale for that quartet, and published the Great Fugue separately, at least in part because of the enormous demands the work placed on performers.
We'll hear it, in an arrangement for chamber orchestra, played by the East Coast Chamber Orchestra, on Center Stage from Wolf Trap. Also on the program, Sunday at 5, the 9th of Dmitri Shostakovich's 15 String Quartets, played by the Jerusalem String Quartet.