Maybe it needs another thread, but which ending to Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 13 do listeners prefer? The problem with the above grouping (ignoring the duplicate opus strings in parts I-V which I find an all too common parsing error in roon) is that a selection of Quartet No. 13 will play with no ending.
As grouped it only plays with an ending if the album is played through and the two alternative endings are in sequence. Personally, I never play the quartets that way as they are usually collected together on large box sets and I only ever want to play one or a few quartets. Roon has always seemed very ambiguous on this but then so too are the metadata suppliers.
It seems to me there are 3 possibilities. The quartet is played 1) with the Grosse Fugue as the ending, or 2) the shorter alternative as the ending, or even 3) with both endings as a rather unusual extended 7 part quartet. I have the impression that preferences are quite evenly split. I prefer the shorter alternative ending and like the Grosse Fugue as a stand-alone piece.
Have to admit that I am a bit indifferent to which version is played, as long as it is done right.
Really enjoy the recording by the Auryn Quartet done by Tacet Records as it contains both variants and you can easily create a playlist to your liking. The alternative Finale does fit seamlessly, it is definitely the more joyful and light variant.
Unfortunately, a large part of the point of my post has been lost when it was moved from a different thread. I cannot remember now how roon parses the Auryn version as I would have imported it years ago but often where the recordings 6th movement is the Gross Fugue with a different Opus number (133 vs 130) the effect is to disconnect the last movement from the quartet so there is no ending at all.
The ´Große Fuge´ is labelled Op. 133 here as well, but following the first 5 movements of Op. 130 so it plays seamlessly (maybe the break is 2 seconds longer compared to others but the room´s noise floor is consistent).
If you want the Op. 130 with the alternative Finale, you have to create a playlist which also plays seamlessly (with the DVD-A version at least):
Yes, that’s one way of doing it. But I generally just change the running order so there is no strange gap with the final movement. I can see I already edited the Auryn. I must have done that a very long time ago. When migrating my library to roon, well over 7 years ago now, I remember having a lot of trouble with this quartet when new to roon. Here is an example which it seems I never got round to editing (LaSalle), and with streamed content there is no choice, but its a very common roon blind spot:
If, as I usually do, you select the quartet from one or other box-set to put on the queue, you will end up with no 6th movement, neither the Gross Fugue or the alternative ending.
Thanks for splitting this thread off from my original query, Tony!
Software like Roon makes it possible for us to choose - as Arindal says.
That would be my preferred way to go: two orders courtesy of Playlists.
It’s doubtful that we shall ever know the reason why Beethoven acquiesced: money; a wish to placate Ataria; perhaps because he came to feel the critics of the Große Fuge - or perhaps of the Große Fuge as the ending to Opus 130 - were indeed right.
Secretly, I like to believe that Beethoven by that time - totally deaf and with barely a year to live - knew that his greatness would outlive him. He knew that the decision which others maybe did force on him could never detract from the fact that the Große Fuge stood by itself; and that nothing but this work’s (indeed all his works’) greatness truly mattered.
