Die Größte Fuge, an opera by Elliott Sharp, features bass-baritone Nicholas Isherwood and the Asasello Quartet.

After 1815, Beethoven was beset with problems: physical, emotional, financial. Retreating into "fugue" states, he has visions, celestial and horrific, not hallucinations but visitations from a parallel reality of marvelous inventions, gleaming ships in the air, unheard musics, carnage beyond belief. Emerging, he translates these scenes into a music that stretches the rules to the verge of destruction. The resultant work, Die Große Fuge, is considered the first 20th-century string quartet.

Sharp created a libretto from letters and writings of Beethoven as well as taking elements from Die Große Fuge as seed materials for extrapolation, randomisation, and recombinance. Beethoven is presented as a disturbed and effecting figure, the tortured genius. The performers play Sharp's score, both apocalyptic and ecstatic, with incredible intensity.