Classical Music | Orchestral Music

Ludwig van Beethoven

Symphony No. 6 in F major, Op. 68 ("Pastoral")  Play

Concertgebouw Orchestra Orchestra
Bernard Haitink Conductor

Recorded on 01/01/2010, uploaded on 07/17/2016

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

The “Pastoral” Symphony is Beethoven’s homage to nature. For him, nature was an absolute necessity—for life and for creative endeavors. He spent the better part of his summers wandering the wooded countrysides of Hetzendorf, Heiligenstadt, and Döbling. It was in these rustic environs that he conceived and drafted many of his greatest compositions, which were then completed and put into score during his winters in Vienna.

From a historical perspective, the Sixth Symphony was the first truly successful example of “program music,” and laid the groundwork for the concert overtures of Mendelssohn and the symphonic poems of Liszt. Yet, contrary to those later masters (Liszt in particular), Beethoven recognizes the limitations of music as an artistic medium. Though he has provided subtitles for each individual movement that succinctly describe the picture being painted by the music, he provides the crucial key to his intent beneath the work’s title: “More an expression of feeling than a painting.” Indeed, it is apparent in the conception of the symphony that Beethoven was quick to avoid any instance of actual imitations of sights or sound. Indeed, even the celebrated imitations of birdcalls towards the conclusion of the second movement Beethoven has admitted were intended as a practical joke, and the section as a whole is more in keeping with the capricious outbursts found in his other symphonies than any attempt at blatant tone-painting.

The opening movement Beethoven has entitled “Awakening of cheerful feelings upon arrival in the countryside,” and nothing could be more blissful than the melody which greets the listener at the very start of the movement. Over rustic open fifths from the viola and cello, the first violin presents the melody that will become the motivic germ of every melody in the movement. Indeed, the organic growth of melodic ideas is as much a portrait of nature as the emotions Beethoven aims to convey. Each new idea springs forth of natural consequence from the previous, yet all the while takes on a new life entirely its own. As with the countryside, in its meadows and forests, in its endless shades of green, Beethoven repeats again and again his motifs in an imitation of the monotony of nature. In lesser hands, the music would be just that—monotonous—but Beethoven achieves astonishing freshness, as clear and refreshing as any summer breeze. A wealth of ideas is drawn forth from the principal melody before the secondary theme arrives in the key of C major, presented by the cellos beneath an accompaniment of undulating eighth notes in the upper strings.

An illustration of the length to which Beethoven carries the repetitions of his motifs can be seen at the start of development. In G minor, the principal theme gives way to a passage nearly one hundred measures in length in which the rhythmic figure of its second measure is hardly absent. With little melodic or harmonic change, the figure passes through the keys of B-flat, D, G, and finally, E major. Yet how refreshing and beautiful it all is! With the arrival of the recapitulation is a passage akin to the doleful oboe solo at the same place in the first movement of the Fifth Symphony. What had been a pause on the dominant in the exposition is now beautifully unfolded into an unaccompanied line, commencing with a trill, for the first violins. A lengthy coda completes the movement which further develops upon the plentiful motifs already met with, closing on two quiet tonic chords.

The second movement, “Scene by the brook,” most closely approaches any kind of literal tone-painting than any o other movement in the symphony. The murmuring of the stream is beautifully portrayed in the triplets that accompany the B-flat major principal melody, which is here again given by the first violins. The sustained tones of the horns further bring the image of a gently flowing stream into focus. Following the theme’s first appearance, two motifs appear alongside its repetition that will become prominent features of the movement. The first is a trill figure; the other, a syncopated pedal. Like the opening Allegro, the arrival of the second theme is long delayed by the wealth of ideas Beethoven draws forth from his material. However, when it finally arrives, in the rich sounds of the bassoon and cellos, it playful skirts the expected dominant key (F major) by beginning in D minor. As the movement unfolds as another sonata form, the same exquisite refinements and embellishments of melody that adorned the Adagio of the Fourth Symphony are here present. The recapitulation is noticeably altered, and the second theme arrives sooner than it had before. The coda, in contrast, is relatively brief and mainly consists of the caricatures of the birdcalls notated in the score—the nightingale by the flute, the quail by the oboe, and the cuckoo by the clarinet. Twice the calls are given, separated by a tender passage taken from earlier in the movement, before arriving the Andante arrives at its conclusion.

Filling the role of Scherzo is an Allegro movement entitled “Peasants’ Festival.” After the previous idyllic movements, the listener is now introduced to the inhabitants of this picturesque landscape. Strings begin the movement in unison with a descending melodic line that pulls the music into the key of the relative minor. Yet, before this key can even hardly be established, the music rebounds, now with the aid of the woodwinds, into a dolce D major tune. In the latter half of the scherzo, a new melody is introduced—a halting, syncopated tune given first to the oboe. It is minimally accompanied by only the violins and the second bassoon, the latter of which is only allowed to play the tonic and dominant notes of the key. It is said that this passage was an intentional caricature of a village band, known to Beethoven, that performed regularly at “The Three Ravens” tavern in the Upper Brühl, and the halting rhythms were a measure of how tired or soused was the player. Yet, Beethoven turns the clumsy playing of the village musicians into an irrepressible rhythmic drive that plunges headlong into a vibrant duple time episode, driven by a rustic melody in the strings. After a brief pause, the scherzo is resumed from the beginning. It proceeds as it did before, but is unexpectedly cutoff by the arrival of the fourth movement – “Storm.”

In the middle of a cadence, the entire orchestra falls silent except for the rumbling of the cellos and basses, a two-measure tremolo upon D-flat, pulling the music into the key of the tonic minor. To the score is also added the piccolo and two trombones in order to make all possible clamor during the tempest that puts to flight the merry villagers. The entire movement is full of wonderful effects. The terrifying roar of the thunderstorm is heard early on in a remarkable instance of the cellos playing quintuplets against the sixteenths of the basses. Flashes of lightening present themselves in the sharp cracks that issue forth from the first violins, aided by the timpani and winds. In the incessant tremolandi that are hardly absent from the movement, one can imagine the howling wind or the unrelenting beat of the rain. Yet, unlike its arrival, the storm gradually passes by. Sustained tones replace the violent tremolandi and the dynamic slowly fades to a pianissimo. As the last distant rumbles of the storm fade, the flute, with a heavenly ascent through the scale of the dominant ushers in the Finale.

The Finale is entitled “Shepherd's song; cheerful and thankful feelings after the storm.” Over an open fifth on the dominant C, the clarinet begins the movement with a Jodel. The horn takes up the figure four measures later in a passage as noteworthy (and reviled by Beethoven’s critics) as the horn passage that ushered in the recapitulation of the opening movement of the Eroica. While the horn enters in the same key as the violas, the cellos enter with their own pedal point on the tonic. This resulting clash of tonic and dominant harmony, even longer and more pronounced than it had been in the Eroica, drew the ire of critics such as Oulibicheff and Fétis. Yet, how beautifully the discord between F and G is resolved into the third of the tonic chord and coincides with the beginning of the subject of the ensuing sonata rondo. Like the first and second movements, a seemingly endless stream of melodic ideas passes before the listener. A brief C major idea that flows naturally out of the preceding material leads into an altered return of the Jodel and thus a reprise of the principal theme. Soon after, a somewhat lengthier B-flat major tune enters in the clarinets and bassoons. The coda is quite serene. In the final measures, the Jodel returns in the horn against soft murmuring runs in the strings, which descend all the way into the basses when the final fortissimo cadence arrives. 

Recorded in the Concertgebouw.  Recorded around 2010.

courtesy of YouTube