Ludwig van Beethoven - Pastorale
The year 2020 marks the 250th anniversary of Beethoven's birth year (1770).
The Symphony No. 6 in F major, also known as the Pastoral Symphony (German: Pastorale) is a symphony composed by Ludwig van Beethoven and was completed in 1808. The symphony has five movements (rather than the typical four).
Listen to them here:
I. "Erwachen heiterer Empfindungen bei der Ankunft auf dem Lande" ("Awakening of cheerful feelings on arrival in the countryside"):
II. "Szene am Bach" ("Scene by the brook"):
III. "Lustiges Zusammensein der Landleute" ("Merry gathering of country folk"):
IV. "Gewitter, Sturm" ("Thunder, Storm") & V. "Hirtengesang, Frohe und dankbare Gefühle nach dem Sturm" ("Shepherd's song. Cheerful and thankful feelings after the storm"):
Ludwig van Beethoven
Born on the 15th or 16th of December, 1770 in Bonn, Germany, Ludwig was the son of Johann van Beethoven, an alcoholic brute and a singer in the Electoral Chapel. Determined that his son should become a second Mozart, his father would keep him slaving at the piano all night, hitting him over the head whenever he made a mistake or dragging him from his bed to entertain his drunken companions. Despite (or because of) this start, Beethoven's prodigious gifts allowed him to master the violin, piano, organ and horn and have his first work published by the age of eleven.
In 1787 Ludwig's mother died. His father's alcoholism cost him his job, and Beethoven was obliged to earn money to sustain himself and his two younger brothers by playing the viola in a theatre orchestra. Five years later he moved to Vienna, which became his home for the rest of his life. After further lessons of compositions and public piano performances his reputation as a composer and virtuoso pianist spread rapidly. In 1796, when Beethoven was only 26, he became aware of impending deafness.
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| Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827) |
Beethoven's predicament spurred him on, nevertheless, into a spell of creativity. Though financially insecure, he turned down well-paid posts in order to continue what he was doing on his own terms.
"I carry my thoughts about me for a long time before I write them down. Meanwhile my memory is tenacious that I am sure never to forget, not even in years, a theme that has once occurred to me...there remains nothing but the labour of writing it down, which is quickly accomplished when I have the time, for sometimes I take up other work, but never to the confusion of one with the other."
- Beethoven in a letter to Louis Schlösser, 1823
With his deafness only getting worse, Beethoven began to retreat into himself and isolate from society.
"I was on the point of putting an end to my life - the only thing that held me back was my art."
-Beethoven
In his final years, Beethoven lived in his own world, deprived of any external sounds (not to mention music) and was able to communicate only by the means of conversation books. At the beginning of 1827, already ill, Beethoven caught a cold while visiting his surviving brother. The cold developed into pneumonia, and jaundice and dropsy set in. He died on the afternoon of 26 March in the middle of a violent electrical storm. His last words were reported to have been:
'I shall hear in heaven.'
All Vienna mourned, schools closed and people stayed away from work as the great composer was taken for burial at the Währing Cemetery.
Sources: Jeremy Nicholas 'The Great Composers', Encyclopaedia Britannica, Wikipedia
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