Ludwig van Beethoven
Symphony No. 6 (“Pastoral”)
There was a lot for the audience at the Theater an der Wien to contemplate on December 22, 1808. Not only was Ludwig van Beethoven premiering two new symphonies, his fifth and sixth (numbered that evening in the opposite order from that now used), he also took the opportunity to introduce his fourth piano concerto, the Choral Fantasy, two movements of his new Mass in C, the concert aria Ah! perfido, and one of his well-known solo improvisations at the piano. The audience, however, may have paid most attention to the fact that it was winter in Austria, and the heating in the building was broken. Certainly by the time the Fantasy was unleashed as a finale, the under-rehearsed musicians were exhausted, the audience was ready to leave, and the performance, by all reports, fell completely apart.
These factors probably best explain why Beethoven’s sixth symphony was not a “big hit” at first. The symphony also suffered slightly by comparison to its sibling, the fifth. It would be difficult to imagine two more different works on their surface: the restless, searching, aggressive nature of the fifth in contrast with the serenely joyous sixth. Yet Beethoven worked on both of them in tandem, and both works are dedicated to the same two men, Prince Franz Joseph von Lobkowitz and Count Andreas Rasumovsky. Beethoven made sketches for music he marked “murmur of the brook” as early as 1803, and he toyed with the idea for a nature-inspired symphony for several years before knuckling down to it in the spring and fall of 1808, after finishing his fifth symphony earlier that same year.
Beethoven loved to go on long walks in the countryside surrounding Vienna, and he spent his summers in country towns such as Heiligentstadt, where he completed the sixth symphony. (When Napoleon’s forces occupied Vienna the next year, Beethoven complained that he could no longer go on the long walks that he found “indispensable.”) His musical aim in the Pastoral Symphony–which he himself named–was to provide “an expression of feeling” of nature. Beethoven was also likely inspired by a work by Rheinish composer Justin Heinrich Knecht, Le Portrait musical de la nature, intended to depict the peaceful countryside, a sudden storm, and general thanksgiving after the storm passes. But although Beethoven gave his movements precise descriptive titles, and even noted the types of birds his woodwinds represented, he also admonished:
“The listener should be allowed to discover the situation. All painting in instrumental music, if pushed too far, is a failure.”
Let us walk in Beethoven’s woods, then, knowing that he invites us to bring our own feelings about nature along with us.
The first movement opens so softly as to be almost imperceptible. As critic Michael Steinberg points out, the effect is as if Beethoven’s world of nature has been waiting all along to welcome us. Here we discover the “Awakening of cheerful feelings upon arrival in the country” (allegro ma non troppo). But what a leisurely allegro it is! Beethoven spends ninety measures considering a single musical gesture, a pattern of five falling notes, which he scrutinizes in B-flat, D, G, and finally E. The simple, short, repeated motifs of this movement have been likened to the repetitions in nature, from the many leaves on a tree to the blades of grass underfoot. The harmonic structure is resolutely stable, so Beethoven inserts some rhythmic variance with a series of triplets over duplet figures, to keep the movement flowing.
And “flowing” is precisely the word for the next movement, “Scene by the brook” (andante molto mosso). The second violins, violas, and a pair of muted cellos play a water-like motif in thirds, while the remaining cellos and the double-basses sound a pizzicato accompaniment, joined in their pedal-point by the horns. The first violins take up the melody, which is once again built from short, fragmentary lines. The movement ends with a famous cadenza for a trio of woodwind birds: nightingale (flute), quail (oboe), and cuckoo (clarinet).
The “Happy gathering of country folk” (allegro) is attended by a peasant band that is perhaps not quite as polished as those in the halls of Vienna where Beethoven performed, but undoubtedly enthusiastic. The several rhythmic changes, from theme to trio to a 2/4 section, are meant to represent the varying skills of these amateurs and also provide a new, angular drive in contrast to the more placid movements that preceded this one. But the rustic peasant dance seems barely begun when a sudden orchestral storm approaches.
“Thunderstorm” (allegro), gives Beethoven a chance to portray everything from the rumbling thunder to the racing downpour. Here he finally unleashes both the top and bottom of his musical arsenal, from the piccolo to the trombones and the timpani, all of which have been held in reserve for this moment. He also employs a series of diminished chords as well as the chord of F-minor, which has been surprisingly absent from the rest of this F-major symphony. Yet this movement is really just an introduction to what follows, for it does not end but, like a storm that sweeps across the landscape, segues seamlessly into the final section, “Shepherds’ song; cheerful and thankful feelings after the storm” (allegretto). Occasional peals of thunder are heard as, one by one, the oboe, flute, clarinets, and horns venture out into the sunshine. The chorale-like phrases lend this closing section its air of ‘thanksgiving,’ and the work ends on a stately and very pianistic gesture: two fortissimo chords.