For your blog post due Thursday, January 23 at 9 am, please
consider our class discussion on Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony (“Pastoral”) as led
by Prof. Laurance from the afternoon on Wednesday, January 22, and comment in
250-500 words on the following points:
- What did you know
about today’s subject before the listening and/or discussion session?
- What did you find
most surprising about today’s subject?
- What would you like to know more about after experiencing today’s class?
Your post should be placed directly in the comments to this blog
entry, and is due at 9 am on Thursday, January 23.
I've only heard excerpts from the sixth symphony before, not the complete version. I know that it is named as the Pastoral Symphony, but I have no idea that it is actually a programmatic like symphony, and it has five movements in total instead of regular four movements.
ReplyDeleteLike Prof. Laurance mentioned in the class, compared to Beethoven’s other symphonies, this one is more figurative and kind ofmore unsophisticated. The question “What is pastoral?” is really intriguing, that people can use certain meters --- compound meters, and certain instruments---pipes, for example, to easily create the atmosphere of pastoral music. The most surprising thing for me is the structure of this symphony. Although it is written in five movements, this symphony gives me a feeling of only contains three movements. The third, fourth and fifth movements sound “complete” only when they are performed without interruption. It's not just that the end of each movement is the beginning of the next, but also because the three movements together tell a complete story: the gathering people meet the thunder and storm, and they wait until the next daylight comes out. The other topic which really attracts me is the sense of time applied in the music. The first two movements are simply feelings of sensations: a cheerful countryside landscape and the scene of brook. The repeated theme stands for an impression, but the time stands still in the first two movements, and the music is hardly being pushed forward. The third, fourth and fifth is absolutely taking a timeline to narrate the story. However, if one only listened to the fourth movement without the third and the fifth, this movement is still vague in the sense of time since it is just the storm and thunder all over the movement. It is really interesting to think this symphony in this way and I appreciate Prof.Laurance’s lecture on it, I enjoyed it a lot.
I’m struggling with the program music and the symphony now. Why couldn’t we just call the 6th symphony as a set of program music? Is it because there are too many instruments are required?
Beethoven’s 6th symphony is overall one of my favorite symphonies, because of its beauty and simplicity. Having heard it many times over the years, I was very familiar with it before our
ReplyDeletelistening and discussion today.
I enjoyed our discussion with Prof. Laurance today because she encouraged us to think about how Beethoven’s 6th stands out from the rest of his symphonies. First of all, it is a programmatic symphony, which means it invokes images, sensations, moods, or a narrative. In the case of the 6th symphony (“Pastorale”), the program is given in Beethoven’s evocative titles, which are, in order, that Beethoven writes over each movement. Prof. Laurance told us an interesting dispute between two scholars regarding the programmatic nature: Frederick Niecks believes that the Pastorale symphony proves Beethoven to be the father of the programmatic musical tradition of the Romantic period. Donald Francis Tovey, however, feels that the program in the 6th symphony is irrelevant; that one can have the full experience just listening to it without the program. I personally don’t agree with Tovey; read on to find out why.
The symphony, in my opinion, has many intriguing aspects. It is definitely less “heroic” than Beethoven’s other middle period symphonies. It has five movements, which is abnormal even for Beethoven at this time! To me, it is defined by an unbounded love of nature. He even creates some special effects, like the cuckoo-calls and trills in the first movement. The first two movements seem to suspend any sense of time, and the experience is rapturous. There exists a lot of repetition, and not a lot of forward-moving determination. When Beethoven introduces a theme, he seems to hang on to it and let us mull it over for a while. Both movements are in sonata form, but the second movement’s thematic divisions are somewhat fuzzy. The third movement starts off in scherzo form, but instead of returning to the ‘A’ section after the ‘B’, it gets sidetracked with a romping, dancing ‘C’ section. At the end of the C section, it halts as if Beethoven forgot what’s next (perhaps he was delirious from drinking too much beer…), and then, he randomly decides to start over. He repeats everything (A, B and C) and then goes into a coda. As the movement comes to an end, it is interrupted by an ominous sound, which becomes the storm portrayed in the fourth movement. The fifth movement is the most gratifying experience, and Beethoven invokes feelings of relief/gratitude after the storm. Prof. Laurance believes, and I agree, that it is like the restoration of natural order, of humans’ place among nature, and our harmony with it. For me, the program fits the piece, especially in the last three movements. I take issue with Tovey’s opinion that the program is irrelevant because I don’t see any other rational explanation for the fourth movement’s abrupt interruption. Thinking in terms of form, if the third movement is a scherzo, the fourth will be a finale with a big celebration. The abrupt interruption, in my mind, can only be explained by something extra-musical.
I feel that our discussion today was appropriate in the context of Beethoven’s 6th symphony because it gave me a chance to understand the music from a historical and holistic way. I respect Prof. Laurance’s decision to approach the symphony in this way, rather than purely theoretically, because as we found out we barely scratch the surface when analyzing this piece theoretically. In a programmatic piece, we cannot expect the composer to adhere to customs of formal structure. I feel like I know Beethoven better after discussing the Pastorale in this way, and I would like to extend this type of analysis to other programmatic works.
The lecture today by Professor Laurance was a really interesting take on the Pastoral symphony. I learned a lot about it and the genre that I didn’t know before, and I thought it was a very different approach from the ones that some of the other lecturers took most recently. Prior to today, I knew the symphony only at a surface level, having listened to it and played through it. I know the excerpts for the various instruments as well. But Professor Laurance really helped me think about what makes Beethoven’s 6th “pastoral” at all!
ReplyDeleteThe explanation of the genre through the reading and the lecture was very interesting to me. I think it’s fascinating that we can draw connections and associations between specific musical features in a symphony and the ideas that they represent. Sometimes those can be literal – like in Scheherazade – and sometimes they can be more abstract. The latter is what Beethoven aimed for in his 6th. I have never been the biggest fan of this symphony – it is not in my top 3 or 4 of Beethoven’s – but following the lecture today I had to really think harder about that. The way that Professor Laurance explained the structure resonated with me: Beethoven first sets up the expectations for a four-movement symphony about the pastoral, but then shatters them with the awkward form of the scherzo stumbling into the massive, seemingly eternal thunderstorm. Then, the symphony emerges keeping the awe intact and returns to a picture of not a perfect life, but of what life can be like. This reading of the piece gives it a new meaning that I find frankly quite heroic.
I will do another few listens of this symphony in order to really think about this structure, and I’m really happy that I got to explore what we did today in the 6th symphony.
I don’t think I realized how strongly I felt about Symphony No. 6 until class today. I’ve heard it before several times– there’s a “Symphonies No. 5 and 6” Berlin Phil conducted by Karajan album that I used to listen to a lot, and did a bit more listening to today after class. I had forgotten about this until recently, but the horn solo in movement III was the first Beethoven excerpt I ever learned to play on my instrument, so this work holds a special place in my heart. I also spent some time learning about this symphony when I took Music of the Classic Era, which in retrospect is interesting, because this piece exists in a kind of in between space between the Classical and Romantic eras.
ReplyDeleteThe thing I thought most most interesting from today’s lecture was the juxtaposition of pastoral and sublime– the pastoral being almost the entire symphony, and the sublime being the storm. I also really liked our discussion of what exactly “pastoral” is in today’s lecture. What its definition is, what it’s musical associations are, different aspects that contribute to it in different mediums, etc. When I think of pastoral, the first thing my brain goes to is Shakespeare. I’ve learned that the three genres of plays he writes are comedy, tragedy, and pastoral, except this isn’t widely known because no one talks about his pastoral plays–honestly, I couldn’t even name one. I think this is interesting when applied to music, because in a way, pastoral music is more popular and accessible. Maybe people think of Symphony No. 6 as lesser than Beethoven’s other works because it’s not quite as genius and mindblowing as 3 or 5, but I think that Symphony No. 6 does a good job at doing what it was written to do– its pastoral, accessible, and danceable elements– and doesn’t pretend to be something it’s not. Just because it’s not a masterpiece that breaks new horizons in the symphonic genre doesn’t mean it’s not a good piece.
Something I’m curious about after this class and the string quartet class are the relationship Beethoven had with Shakespeare. Professor Laurance mentioned it briefly in her lecture today, and I’m curious to know more about Shakespeare and Beethoven.
It should go without saying that before today I'd never heard Beethoven's Sixth Symphony, nor did I know what a programmatic or characteristic symphony was. Reflecting on the lecture talking about Beethoven's support for abstract rationalism, I was surprised that he composed a symphony so specific in the images he wanted to produce and feelings he wanted to generate. A "pastoral" symphony almost seems to be too pedestrian a project for a luminous figure like Beethoven. All the same, Beethoven's Sixth is an absolutely beautiful piece of work and one of my favorite pieces of the semester thus far.
ReplyDeleteI also enjoyed today's lecture, particularly the discussion of how Beethoven did his usual act of playing with the expectations of the audience. With the opening in sonata form, Beethoven suggests to the listener that this will be a traditional four movement symphony. Thus it comes as a surprise that Beethoven's Sixth not only has five movements, but also in a way it sounds as though it only as three movements due to the way Beethoven connects the last three movements. I am curious as to why Beethoven felt it necessary to title this work "Memories of Country Life" considering few of his other pieces were debuted with similarly specific titles. It's not as though this needed to be explained as a pastoral piece, the sound of it alone is a strong enough clue that this is meant to connote beautiful pastures and babbling brooks. Further, if he was okay giving his pieces specific names, why did he name so few?
I was already quite familiar with the sixth symphony before yesterday’s class, having both watched Fantasia and listened to the complete symphony many times. I knew the program and movement titles. I always thought I could hear horses galloping and whinnying in the rhythms and trills of the first movement. (and trills of the second too)
ReplyDeleteI found two ideas from Professor Laurance’s especially interesting. First, I liked how she talked about Beethoven using sonata form in the first two movements but undermining the form’s purpose - which is to create direction, forward momentum towards harmonic goals. Beethoven uses repetition and delays cadences to spin out a timeless world for the listener, despite his use of sonata form. This idea really clicked for me, because while we were listening to the symphony during the morning session, I had the thought that you don’t listen to the sixth symphony for logical purpose, you listen to it to experience it, to spend time in the music. Second, I liked how she talked about the fourth movement as the introduction of the sublime to this pastoral world (I’d forgotten about the sublime, which I know we talked about earlier this month.) I personally love the fourth movement. The storm is so expertly orchestrated; I never feel like I’m just listening to an orchestra pretend to be a storm. My favorite point about the sublime in this symphony is that the fifth movement also has elements of it - the sublime stays with you after the storm. I love that a single word “sublime” contains all the information I need to know to explain why I find the fifth movement so moving. I could ramble for hours, or I could simply say it has elements of the sublime.
I’m curious to learn more about the debate that the program is or isn’t necessary for this symphony to be understood. I think I lean towards not necessary. The third, fourth, and fifth movements are certainly very clear without needing any explanation. After Professor Laurance’s lecture, I think the first and the second are pretty clear too. But I’d love to read what other people have to say.
this is Maggie, by the way ^^^
DeleteBefore today, I didn’t know Beethoven Symphony No. 6 very well, but now it’s quickly becoming one of my favorites. This symphony is very different than any of the other Beethoven symphonies, due to its programmaticism, five movement structure, and overall musical aesthetic. I remember in the Music of the Romantic Era class I took, we characterized music as “masculine vs feminine” with Beethoven being the epitome of “masculine” music in the early Romantic Era. While I think there are elements of Beethovenian “masculinity,” this symphony feels more “feminine,” along a similar vein to Schubert. When I think of the Romantic Era, I think of references to the sublime, and tons of nature metaphors, alluded to by musical rhetoric; but when it comes to Beethoven’s music, I think of the sublime in a completely different way, in terms of darkness to light, mostly. That changed slightly today with this symphony. The sublime in terms of nature, and how we are at the mercy of the whims of nature, is something that, again, aesthetically feels more like Schubert to me. There are certainly many elements of this symphony that are distinctly Beethoven; he still pushes the envelope in terms of form, not adhering to traditional notions of sonata form, or scherzos, or general layout of a symphony. The run-on form of the last three movements, evoking an immediacy of experience, is something that I wasn’t aware really existed in Beethoven’s symphonies.
ReplyDeleteIt continues to be surprising to me that programmatic music was considered a lower art form than absolute music. I remember hearing about this general feeling when studying Berlioz and his critics. Hearing this being alluded to in the context of Beethoven is surprising, especially given that this symphony still has many elements of Beethoven’s genius, and the first two movements are more “characteristic” than programmatic. It’s surprising that people view this kind of music as being appealing to peasants, or those that want to feel like peasants. To me, it profoundly uses musical rhetoric to reference a sublime idea of nature, and our place within nature, and uses beautiful melodies to do so.
I’m wondering what Beethoven thought of this symphony. Due to the reputation of programmatic music at the time, he seemed almost insecure about its reception, being sure to describe it as “characteristic” instead of purely programmatic, and making notes to suggest to the reader that it’s more absolute music than it seems.