Symphony No. 6 in F major

F major

F major is a musical major scale based on F, consisting of the pitches F, G, A, B, C, D, and E. Its key signature has one flat . It is by far the oldest key signature with an accidental, predating the others by hundreds of years...

, Op. 68

Opus number

An Opus number , pl. opera and opuses, abbreviated, sing. Op. and pl. Opp. refers to a number generally assigned by composers to an individual composition or set of compositions on publication, to help identify their works...

, also known as the Pastoral Symphony (German Pastoral-Sinfonie), is a symphony

Symphony

A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, scored almost always for orchestra. A symphony usually contains at least one movement or episode composed according to the sonata principle...

 composed by Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...

, and was completed in 1808. One of Beethoven's few works containing explicitly programmatic content

Program music

Program music or programme music is a type of art music that attempts to musically render an extra-musical narrative. The narrative itself might be offered to the audience in the form of program notes, inviting imaginative correlations with the music...

, the symphony was first performed in the Theater an der Wien on 22 December 1808 in a four hour concert called the Musikalische Akademie.

Background

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 locales. He was, however, not the first composer of his time to depict nature symphonically; for example, Joseph Haydn

Joseph Haydn

Franz Joseph Haydn , known as Joseph Haydn , was an Austrian composer, one of the most prolific and prominent composers of the Classical period. He is often called the "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet" because of his important contributions to these forms...

's oratorio

Oratorio

An oratorio is a large musical composition including an orchestra, a choir, and soloists. Like an opera, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an ensemble, various distinguishable characters, and arias...

 The Seasons

The Seasons (Haydn)

The Seasons is an oratorio by Joseph Haydn .-Composition, premiere, and reception:Haydn was led to write The Seasons by the great success of his previous oratorio The Creation , which had become very popular and was in the course of being performed all over Europe...

, premiered in 1802, likewise portrayed the loveliness of nature, peasant dance, a thunderstorm, bird song, and other 'pastoral' imagery. Beethoven did not write another oratorio, but a symphony, and thus escaped from the overly-literal character that a libretto

Libretto

A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...

 would have imposed. As the composer said, the Sixth Symphony is "more the expression of feeling than painting", and the same point is made in the title he attached to the first movement (see below).

The first sketches of this symphony appeared in 1802. The symphony has programmatic titles; Beethoven remarked, "It is left to the listener to find out the situations ... Anyone that has formed any idea of rural life does not need titles to imagine the composer’s intentions."

The Pastoral Symphony was composed simultaneously with Beethoven's more famous—and more fiery—Fifth Symphony

Symphony No. 5 (Beethoven)

The Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67, was written by Ludwig van Beethoven in 1804–08. This symphony is one of the most popular and best-known compositions in all of classical music, and one of the most often played symphonies. It comprises four movements: an opening sonata, an andante, and a fast...

. It was premiered along with the Fifth in a long and somewhat under-rehearsed concert in the Theater an der Wien

Theater an der Wien

The Theater an der Wien is a historic theatre on the Left Wienzeile in the Mariahilf district of Vienna. Completed in 1801, it has seen the premieres of many celebrated works of theatre, opera, and symphonic music...

 in Vienna, on 22 December 1808. There was little critical response to the premiere performance, but eventually the work has become one of the central works of the symphonic repertoire. It is a favorite of many listeners and is frequently performed and recorded today.

Instrumentation

The symphony is scored for piccolo

Piccolo

The piccolo is a half-size flute, and a member of the woodwind family of musical instruments. The piccolo has the same fingerings as its larger sibling, the standard transverse flute, but the sound it produces is an octave higher than written...

 (fourth movement only), 2 flute

Flute

The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...

s, 2 oboe

Oboe

The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...

s, 2 clarinet

Clarinet

The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...

s in B flat, 2 bassoon

Bassoon

The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...

s, 2 horns

Horn (instrument)

The horn is a brass instrument consisting of about of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. A musician who plays the horn is called a horn player ....

 in F and B flat, 2 trumpets in C and E flat (third, fourth, and fifth movements only), 2 trombone

Trombone

The trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. Like all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player’s vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate...

s (alto and tenor, fourth and fifth movements only), timpani

Timpani

Timpani, or kettledrums, are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum, they consist of a skin called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally made of copper. They are played by striking the head with a specialized drum stick called a timpani stick or timpani mallet...

 (fourth movement only), and strings

String section

The string section is the largest body of the standard orchestra and consists of bowed string instruments of the violin family.It normally comprises five sections: the first violins, the second violins, the violas, the cellos, and the double basses...

.

Form

The symphony breaks from the standard symphonic form of the time in having five movements, rather than the four typical of the Classical era. The movements are marked as follows:

1. Erwachen heiterer Empfindungen bei der Ankunft auf dem Lande (Awakening of cheerful feelings upon arrival in the country): Allegro ma non troppo
2. Szene am Bach (Scene at the brook): Andante molto mosso
3. Lustiges Zusammensein der Landleute (Happy gathering of country folk): Allegro
4. Gewitter, Sturm (Thunderstorm; Storm): Allegro
5. Hirtengesang. Frohe und dankbare Gefühle nach dem Sturm (Shepherds' song; cheerful and thankful feelings after the storm): Allegretto

A performance of the work lasts about 40 minutes. The last three movements are performed together without pause.

I. Allegro ma non troppo

The symphony begins with a placid and cheerful movement depicting the composer's feelings as he arrives in the country. The work is in sonata form

Sonata form

Sonata form is a large-scale musical structure used widely since the middle of the 18th century . While it is typically used in the first movement of multi-movement pieces, it is sometimes used in subsequent movements as well—particularly the final movement...

, and makes use of seven distinct motifs, each of which is extensively developed and transformed.

An unusual aspect of the movement is the use of a microscopic texture, obtained by multiple repetitions of very short motifs. As Yvonne Frindle has said, "the infinite repetition of pattern in nature [is] conveyed through rhythmic cells, its immensity through sustained pure harmonies."

II. Andante molto mosso

This movement, titled by Beethoven "By the brook," is held to be one of Beethoven's most beautiful and serene compositions. It is in a 12/8 meter and the key is B flat major, the subdominant

Subdominant

In music, the subdominant is the technical name for the fourth tonal degree of the diatonic scale. It is so called because it is the same distance "below" the tonic as the dominant is above the tonic - in other words, the tonic is the dominant of the subdominant. It is also the note immediately...

 of the main key of the work, and is in sonata form.

At the opening the strings play a motif that clearly imitates flowing water. The cello section is divided, with just two players playing the flowing-water notes on muted instruments, with the remaining cellos playing mostly pizzicato

Pizzicato

Pizzicato is a playing technique that involves plucking the strings of a string instrument. The exact technique varies somewhat depending on the type of stringed instrument....

 notes together with the double basses.

Toward the end of the movement, in the coda that begins at measure 124, there is a cadenza

Cadenza

In music, a cadenza is, generically, an improvised or written-out ornamental passage played or sung by a soloist or soloists, usually in a "free" rhythmic style, and often allowing for virtuosic display....

 for three woodwind instruments that imitates bird calls at measure 130. Beethoven helpfully identified the bird species in the score: nightingale

Nightingale

The Nightingale , also known as Rufous and Common Nightingale, is a small passerine bird that was formerly classed as a member of the thrush family Turdidae, but is now more generally considered to be an Old World flycatcher, Muscicapidae...

 (flute), quail

Quail

Quail is a collective name for several genera of mid-sized birds generally considered in the order Galliformes. Old World quail are found in the family Phasianidae, while New World quail are found in the family Odontophoridae...

 (oboe), and cuckoo

Cuckoo

The cuckoos are a family, Cuculidae, of near passerine birds. The order Cuculiformes, in addition to the cuckoos, also includes the turacos . Some zoologists and taxonomists have also included the unique Hoatzin in the Cuculiformes, but its taxonomy remains in dispute...

 (clarinet).

III. Allegro

This is the scherzo

Scherzo

A scherzo is a piece of music, often a movement from a larger piece such as a symphony or a sonata. The scherzo's precise definition has varied over the years, but it often refers to a movement which replaces the minuet as the third movement in a four-movement work, such as a symphony, sonata, or...

 movement of the symphony, which depicts the country folk dancing and reveling. It is in F major, returning to the main key of the symphony.

The form of the movement is an altered version of the usual form for scherzi:

Scherzo | Trio | Scherzo | Trio | Scherzo (abbreviated)

In other words, the trio appears twice rather than just once. Perhaps to accommodate this rather spacious arrangement, Beethoven left out the normally observed internal repeats of the scherzo and the trio. Theodor Adorno identifies this particular scherzo as the model for the scherzos by Anton Bruckner

Anton Bruckner

Anton Bruckner was an Austrian composer known for his symphonies, masses, and motets. The first are considered emblematic of the final stage of Austro-German Romanticism because of their rich harmonic language, complex polyphony, and considerable length...

.

The final return of Scherzo conveys a riotous atmosphere with a faster tempo. The movement ends abruptly when the country folk notice that raindrops are starting to fall.

IV. Allegro

The fourth movement, in F minor, depicts a violent thunderstorm with painstaking realism, starting with just a few drops of rain and building to a great climax. There is, of course, thunder, as well as lightning, high winds, and sheets of rain.

The storm eventually spends itself, with an occasional peal of thunder still heard in the distance. There is a seamless transition into the final movement, including a theme that could be interpreted as depicting a rainbow.

Since the fourth movement does not resolve in a final cadence, and by the pattern of Classical symphonies would count as the "extra" movement among the five, critics have described it structurally as an extended introduction to the final movement, rather than an independent movement in itself. A precedent for Beethoven's procedure is found in an earlier work (1787), Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...

's String Quintet in G minor K. 516

String Quintet No. 4 (Mozart)

The String Quintet No. 4 in G minor, K. 516 was written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Like all of Mozart's string quintets, it is a "viola quintet" in that it is scored for string quartet and an extra viola ....

, which likewise prefaces a serene final movement with a long, emotionally stormy introduction.

V. Allegretto

The finale is in F major and is in 6/8 time. The first eight bars form a continuation of the introduction of which the storm was the main part; the finale proper begins in the ninth bar. The movement is written in sonata rondo form

Sonata rondo form

Sonata rondo form was a form of musical organization often used during the Classical music era. As the name implies, it is a blend of sonata form and rondo form.- Structure :...

, meaning that the main theme appears in the tonic

Tonic (music)

In music, the tonic is the first scale degree of the diatonic scale and the tonal center or final resolution tone. The triad formed on the tonic note, the tonic chord, is thus the most significant chord...

 key at the beginning of the development as well as the exposition and the recapitulation.

Like many classical finales, this movement emphasizes a symmetrical eight-bar theme, in this case representing the shepherds' song of thanksgiving. The mood throughout is unmistakably joyful.

The coda, which Antony Hopkins

Antony Hopkins

Antony Hopkins CBE is an English composer, pianist, conductor, and radio broadcaster.Hopkins was born in London under the name Ernest William Antony Reynolds; his surname was changed during his childhood to Hopkins...

 has called "arguably the finest music of the whole symphony," starts quietly and gradually builds to an ecstatic culmination for the full orchestra (minus "storm instruments"), with the first violins playing very rapid dotted semi-quavers at the top of their range. There follows a fervent passage 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 chord

Chord (music)

A chord in music is any harmonic set of two–three or more notes that is heard as if sounding simultaneously. These need not actually be played together: arpeggios and broken chords may for many practical and theoretical purposes be understood as chords...

s.

Recordings

• Link to download music – Symphony No. 6 in F Major recording from Musopen
  Musopen
  Musopen is an online music library of copyright-free music. Musopen's mission is to record or obtain recordings that have no copyrights so that its visitors may listen, re-use, or in any way enjoy music; put simply, "to set music free."...
  
  .

External links

• Full Score of Beethoven Symphony number 6.
• Interview with Christoph Eschenbach