Grosse Fuge

A work for string quartet by Beethoven, Op. 133, in a fugal form ‘tantôt libre, tantôt recherchée’, written in 1825 as the finale of the B flat major string quartet, Op. 130, and first performed with it in Vienna, Austria, on 21 March 1826. Beethoven was persuaded by his publisher that it was too long, difficult, and abstruse for that purpose and subsequently wrote the new finale, now part of Op. 130. There is also a version for two pianos, Op. 134.

It is also the title for the first version of Ferruccio Busoni's Fantasia contrappuntistica (1910).