Symphony No. 6 (Beethoven)

Beethoven was a lover of nature who spent a great deal of his time on walks in the country. He frequently left Vienna to work in rural locations. He said that the Sixth Symphony is "more the expression of feeling than painting",The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed., Stanley Sadie (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), vol. 20, p. 396. a point underlined by the title of the first movement.

The first sketches of the Pastoral Symphony appeared in 1802. It was composed simultaneously with Beethoven's more famous Fifth Symphony. Both symphonies were premiered in a long and under-rehearsed concert in the Theater at der Wien in Vienna on 22 December 1808.

Frank A. D'Accone suggested that Beethoven borrowed the programmatic ideas (a shepherd's pipe, birds singing, streams flowing, and a thunderstorm) for his five-movement narrative layout from Le Portrait musical de la Nature ou Grande Symphonie, which was composed by Justin Heinrich Knecht (1752–1817) in 1784.{{cite journal|last=D'Accone|first=Frank|title=Musica Franca: Essays in Honor of Frank A. D'Accone|journal=Festschrift Series|year=1996|publisher=Pendragon Press|issn=1062-4074|page=596}}

The symphony is scored for the following instrumentation:

{{col-begin}}

{{col-break}}

Woodwinds

:1 piccolo (fourth movement only)

:2 flutes

:2 oboes

:2 clarinets in soprano clarinet

:2 bassoons

Brass

:2 horns in F and B{{music|flat}}

:2 trumpets in C and E{{music|flat}} (third, fourth, and fifth movements only)

:2 trombones (alto and tenor, fourth and fifth movements only)

{{col-break}}

Percussion

:Timpani in F and C (fourth movement only)

Strings

:Violins I, II

:Violas

:Cellos

:Double basses

{{col-end}}

The symphony has five, rather than the four movements typical of symphonies preceding Beethoven's time, although there are no pauses between the last three movements. Beethoven wrote a programmatic title at the beginning of each movement:

:

The third movement ends on an unresolved cadence that leads straight into the fourth. A performance of the work lasts about 35-46 minutes, depending on the choice of tempo and whether the repeats in the 1st and 3rd movements are omitted.

{{listen|filename=Ludwig van Beethoven - symphony no. 6 in f major 'pastoral', op. 68 - i. allegro non troppo.ogg|title=First movement|description=Performed by the Skidmore College Orchestra|format=Ogg}}

The symphony begins with a placid and cheerful movement depicting the composer's feelings as he arrives in the country. The movement, in {{music|time|2|4}} meter, is in sonata form, and its motifs are extensively developed. At several points, Beethoven builds up orchestral texture by multiple repetitions of very short motifs. Yvonne Frindle commented that "the infinite repetition of pattern in nature [is] conveyed through rhythmic cells, its immensity through sustained pure harmonies."[https://web.archive.org/web/20070519041404/http://www.apollosfire.org/program_notes/prog_note_Beet_Schub.htm Program notes for the Cleveland Baroque Orchestra]

{{listen|filename=Ludwig van Beethoven - symphony no. 6 in f major 'pastoral', op. 68 - ii. andante molto mosso.ogg|title=Second movement|description=Performed by the Skidmore College Orchestra. Music courtesy of [http://www.musopen.com Musopen]|format=Ogg}}

The second movement is another sonata-form movement, this time in {{music|time|12|8}} and in the key of B{{music|flat}} major, the subdominant of the main key of the work. It begins with the strings playing a motif that imitates flowing water. The cello section is divided, with just two players playing the flowing-water notes on muted instruments, and the remaining cellos playing mostly pizzicato notes together with the double basses.

Towards the end is a cadenza for woodwind instruments that imitates bird calls. Beethoven helpfully identified the bird species in the score: nightingale (flute), quail (oboe), and cuckoo (two clarinets).

{{block indent|

{#(set-global-staff-size 14)

\set Score.proportionalNotationDuration = #(ly:make-moment 1/13)

\new StaffGroup <<

\new Staff = "flute" \with {

instrumentName = #"Fl."

} {

<<

\new Voice = "up" \relative c'''{

\set Staff.midiInstrument = #"flute"

\stemUp \voiceOne

\clef treble

\once \hide TimeSignature

\key bes \major

\time 12/8

\stemUp

g8^(^"Nachtigall." f) r g^( f) r g^( f) g16^(^> f) g^(^> f) g^(^> f) g^(^> f) f1.~\startTrillSpan f4.~ f16^( \stopTrillSpan e f8) r

}

\new Voice = "down" \relative c''{

\stemDown \voiceTwo

R1. R r2.

}

>>

}

\new Staff = "oboe" \with {

instrumentName = #"Ob."

} {

<<

\new Voice = "up" \relative c''' {

\set Staff.midiInstrument = #"oboe"

\stemUp \voiceOne

\key bes \major

r2. r4. r8^"Wachtel." r8 d16. d32 d8 r r r4 d16. d32 d8 r r r4 d16. d32 d8 r d16. d32 d8 r r

}

\new Voice = "down" \relative c''{

\stemDown \voiceTwo

R1. R r2.

}

>>

}

\new Staff = "clarinet" \with {

instrumentName = #"Cl."

} {

<<

\new Voice = "up" \relative c''{

\set Staff.midiInstrument = #"clarinet"

\transposition bes

\stemUp

\key c \major

R1. e8^"Kukuk." c r r4. e8 c r r4. e8 c r e c r

}

\new Voice = "down" \relative c''{

\stemDown

s1. e8 c s s4. e8 c s s4. e8 c s e c s

}

>>

}

>>

}

}}

{{listen|filename=Ludwig van Beethoven - symphony no. 6 in f major 'pastoral', op. 68 - iii. allegro.ogg|title=Third movement|description=Performed by the Skidmore College Orchestra. Music courtesy of [http://www.musopen.com Musopen]|format=Ogg}}

The third movement is a scherzo in {{music|time|3|4}} time, which depicts country folk dancing and reveling. It is in F major, returning to the main key of the symphony. The movement is an altered version of the usual form for scherzi, in that the trio appears twice rather than just once, and the third appearance of the scherzo theme is truncated. Perhaps to accommodate this rather spacious arrangement, Beethoven did not mark the usual internal repeats of the scherzo and the trio. Theodor Adorno identifies this scherzo as the model for the scherzos by Anton Bruckner.Theodor W. Adorno, Beethoven: The Philosophy of Music, edited by Rolf Tiedemann, translated by Edmund Jephcott. Stanford: Stanford University Press (1998): 111. "The Scherzo is, no doubt, the model for Bruckner's scherzi. ... The caricatured dance with the famous syncopation is practically as independent of the Scherzo itself as a trio, and is also in the same key. The movement is self-contained like a suite of three dances."

The final return of the theme conveys a riotous atmosphere with a faster tempo. The movement ends abruptly, leading without a pause into the fourth movement.

{{listen|filename=Ludwig van Beethoven - symphony no. 6 in f major 'pastoral', op. 68 - iv. allegro.ogg|title=Fourth movement|description=Performed by the Skidmore College Orchestra. Music courtesy of [http://www.musopen.com Musopen]|format=Ogg}}

The fourth movement, in F minor and {{music|time|4|4}} time, is the part where Beethoven calls for the largest instrumentation in the entire piece. It depicts a violent thunderstorm with painstaking realism, building from distant thunder (quiet tremolos on cellos and basses) and a few drops of rain (eighth-note passages on the violins) to a great climax with loud thunder (timpani), lightning (piccolo), high winds (swirling arpeggio-like passages on the strings), and heavy downpours of rain (16-note tremolo passages on the strings). With the addition of the trombones later in the movement, Beethoven makes an even more tremendous effect. The storm eventually passes, with an occasional peal of thunder still heard in the distance. An ascending scale passage on the solo flute represents a rainbow. There is a seamless transition into the final movement. This movement parallels Mozart's procedure in his String Quintet in G minor K. 516 of 1787, which likewise prefaces a serene final movement with a long, emotionally stormy introduction.The parallel is noted by Rosen (1997:402), who suggests that the Sixth Symphony be regarded as fundamentally a four-movement work, the storm music serving an extended introduction to the finale.

{{listen|filename=Ludwig van Beethoven - symphony no. 6 in f major 'pastoral', op. 68 - v. allegretto.ogg|title=Fifth movement|description=Performed by the Skidmore College Orchestra. Music courtesy of [http://www.musopen.com Musopen]|format=Ogg}}The finale, which is in F major, is in {{music|time|6|8}} time. The movement is in sonata rondo form, in an Intro-[A-B-A]-C-[A-B-A]-Coda structure. Like many finales, this movement emphasizes a symmetrical eight-bar theme, in this case representing the shepherds' song of thanksgiving.

The final A section starts quietly and gradually builds to an ecstatic culmination for the full orchestra (minus piccolo and timpani) with the first violins playing very rapid triplet tremolo on a high F. There follows a fervent coda suggestive of prayer, marked by Beethoven pianissimo, sotto voce; most conductors slow the tempo for this passage. After a brief period of afterglow, the work ends with two emphatic F-major chords.

{{reflist}}

• Antony Hopkins, The Nine Symphonies of Beethoven (Scolar Press, 1981, {{ISBN|1-85928-246-6}}).
• David Wyn Jones, Beethoven: Pastoral Symphony (Cambridge University Press, 1995, {{ISBN|0-521-45684-3}}).
• Charles Rosen, The Classical Style (2nd edition 1997, W.W. Norton & Company, New York, {{ISBN|0-393-31712-9}}).
• Sixth and Seventh Symphonies (Dover Publications, Inc., 1976, {{ISBN|0-486-23379-0}}).

• Frogley, Alain (1995). "Beethoven's Struggle for Simplicity in the Sketches for the Third Movement of the Pastoral." Beethoven Forum, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 99–134.
• {{cite journal|last= Gossett|first= Philip|author-link=Philip Gossett|title= Beethoven's Sixth Symphony: Sketches for the First Movement |journal= Journal of the American Musicological Society |volume=27|issue=2|pages=248–284|date= Summer 1974|doi= 10.2307/830560|jstor= 830560}}
• {{cite journal|last= Jander|first= Owen|title= The Prophetic Conversation in Beethoven's 'Scene by the Brook' |journal= The Musical Quarterly |volume=77|issue=3|pages=508–559|date= Autumn 1993|doi= 10.1093/mq/77.3.508}}
• {{cite journal|last= Kirby|first= F. E.|title= Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony as a Sinfonia caracteristica |journal= The Musical Quarterly |volume=56|issue=4|pages=605–623|date= October 1970|doi= 10.1093/mq/LVI.4.605}}
• {{cite journal|last= Knapp|first= Raymond|title= A Tale of Two Symphonies: Converging Narratives of Divine Reconciliation in Beethoven's Fifth and Sixth |journal= Journal of the American Musicological Society |volume=53|issue=2|pages=291–343|date= Summer 2000|doi= 10.2307/832010|jstor= 832010}}
• Lorenz, Christoph L. (1985). "Beethovens Skizzen zur 'Pastoralen.'" Die Musikforschung, vol. 38, no. 2, pp. 95–108.
• Russell, Tilden (Spring 2003). "Unification in the Sixth Symphony: The Pastoral Mode." Beethoven Forum, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 1–17.
• Will, Richard (Fall 2002). "The Nature of the Pastoral Symphony." Beethoven Forum, vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 205–215.
• {{cite journal|last= Will|first= Richard|title= Time, Morality, and Humanity in Beethoven's 'Pastoral' Symphony |journal= Journal of the American Musicological Society |volume=50|issue=2–3|pages=271–329|date= July 1977|doi= 10.2307/831836|jstor= 831836}}

{{Commons category|Symphony No. 6 (Beethoven)}}

• {{IMSLP2|work=Symphony No.6, Op.68 (Beethoven, Ludwig van)|cname=Symphony No. 6}}
• [https://theclassicreview.com/beginners-guides/beethoven-symphony-no-6-a-beginners-guide/ Beethoven's Symphony No. 6 ("Pastoral") – A Beginners' Guide – Overview, analysis and the best recordings – The Classic Review]
• [https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5478661 Interview with Christoph Eschenbach]

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Category:1808 compositions

06

Category:Compositions in F major