This symphony was written simultaneously with Symphony No. 5 (itself a much longer story); they were both performed together in Vienna on 22 December 1808. Despite significant differences, the two share many traits, especially those of tone. Yet the “Pastoral” is closest to the somewhat earlier Violin Concerto op. 61.
Rather than an image of the elements, it is a self-portrait with nature in the background. The artist can take a deeper breath after venturing into the country, meditate at a brook’s bank, listen to a village band, share with the players shelter from the storm. It is in his imagination that a thankful song is born; in accord with the convention of sentimentalism, he makes a shepherd sing it, or perhaps he sings it himself with a hat several sizes too big on his head, with a shepherd’s staff in his hand. This is what “Pastoral Symphony” is all about: it originates from the spirit of Rousseau rather than that of Schiller.
And this is exactly what makes it plain that Beethoven is now at a crossroads between Classicism and Romanticism. Romanticism implies bringing personal emotions to the fore. Beethoven himself makes it clear in the header (“more sentiment than tone painting”), as if he were unsure of being understood, or even of the perfection of means used. Yet the background – the very nature – remains a classicist and idyllic landscape rather than a breath-taking mountainous paysage with sharp contrasts and dramatic chiaroscuro, a roaring waterfall, or “forests deep.” No: it is a small village near Vienna, with a lazy stream, maybe with farm animals wading into it. The cuckoos and the doves, the voices of which can be heard over the measured trickle of the water, seem to have been borrowed from Haydn’s Creation. Even The Storm simply signals its presence instead of horrifying, although the first drops of rain which make the band scamper for cover are painted very suggestively, and the entire folk music stylization in Happy gathering of country folk is as authentic as never before.
It seems that Beethoven feels ill at ease as an illustrator, or perhaps not so much ill at ease as in someone else’s shoes. This is why he tried to use the above-mentioned annotation to remove what he might have seen as an indispensable element into the background, even with the awareness that it was exactly what would attract the audience.
For everything that counts in Pastoral Symphony is contained in the personal sphere. The deep comfort the artist finds “upon arriving in the country” (and leaving behind the oppressive atmosphere of the city) is rendered in the first movement by a theme of an entirely novel kind: scholars have long pointed out its lack of inner dynamics. And yet the music continues to increase with the temperature of the “joyous feelings.” Similarly, the scene of By the brook is transformed from a conventional picture into a true “song of the soul” of complete happiness, free of everyday desires. And finally, Shepherd’s song; cheerful and thankful feelings after the storm, could of course be understood metaphorically – the storm we have just heard might have been taking place in the soul instead of nature. And yet the feeling of bliss and gratitude is very real – so much, indeed, that Beethoven does not hesitate to intervene even more significantly into the symphonic form than by mere increase of the number of movements. This is the first ever hymnic finale, the first true encounter of song and symphony, the two main genres of 19th-century music, and the first apotheosis of emotion expressed on such a grand scale with purely musical means.
Who then could dare to say that Beethoven is not the greatest lawmaker of the music of Romanticism?
Maciej Negrey