Collins Classics OFFICIAL – Beethoven (FULL ALBUM)
Symphony No.6 “Pastorale” and Egmont Overture Op.68
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0:00 I Allegro Ma Non Troppo “Awakening of cheerful feelings on arrival in the countryside.”
12:24 II Andante Molto Mosso “Scene by the brook.”
25:35 III Allegro “Merry gathering of country folk.”
31:11 IV Allegro “Thunder. Storm.”
34:49 V Allegretto “Shepherd’s song. Happy and thankful feelings after the storm.”
45:48 VI Sostenuto Ma Non Troppo “Egmont Overture”
Conducted by James Loughran
Performed by the London Philarmonic Orchestra
Symphony No. 6 in F major, Op. 68 ‘Pastoral’
Beethoven provided the movements at this symphony with titles, as well as the work itself; but he also declared that he was concerned with sensation rather than depiction — in fact his
own musical reactions to country Iife, and not what life in the country looks and sounds like. There is in fact some pictorial effect in the Pastoral Symphony: the birdcalls at the end of the
Andante sound Iike birdcalls and not like Beethoven’s reaction to birdsong; and the Storm is perfectly vivid, But the work is not a country diary which can be followed step by step, and so
it is probably best to think about the music as music.
The Pastoral was completed quite quickly, for Beethoven, between 1807 and 1808, as a relaxation from the ardours at the Fifth Symphony. The two symphonies were performed together
at a concert in 1808, and both were dedicated to two at Beethoven’s princely friends jointly.
The symphony opens at a relaxed tempo but with bracing thoughts, and the subtitle speaks of the blessed exhilaration that the town—dweller feels on breathing country air’. The music is
more lyrical than dramatic, and the ideas which supplement the easy— going first tune are presented in a conversational, almost obviously not quite casual manner, though they are thoroughly expanded as the movement proceeds. The whole thing sounds what it is, a contrast to the electric drama of the Fifth Symphony.
The broad unhurried pace is maintained in the slow movement which was inspired by the landscape at a riverside. As the movement unfolds expansively, so too the music grows more
sonorous and warmer, with the rich advantage at divided and muted cellos. When the famous birdcalls arrive, they are neatly dovetailed into a longer phrase, and the cuckoo call is echoed
unobtrusively in the second half at the phrase by bassoons. The scherzo has the subtitle, ‘High-spirited reunion at country Folk’; it is mercurial and yet sturdy in mood, not at all unlike the scherzo part at the corresponding movement in the Seventh Symphony, Beethoven comes near to tone—painting in the trio section, where it is easy to hear the stamping of hob—nailed boots, but the inspiration has undergone a transformation into musical poetry, and it is more exact to say that the music is danceable, rather than literally danced. Beethoven was in the habit of enlarging his scherzo form by playing the trio section twice, but this time the second trio is interrupted by a pattering figure that heralds the Storm section, for which Beethoven augmented his orchestra with a piccolo, trombones and, for the first time in this symphony, the
drums. When the storm has passed, a sigh of relief from the oboe leads to C major and the finale. And this unorthodox key shows that the movement had actually begun with the Storm in F minor, which is perfectly proper key for the introduction to an F major movement. The descriptive part of the symphony here is the excuse for a reintroduction of the eloquent formal device that Beethoven was simultaneously practising in the Fifth Symphony — an introduction to the finale that sounds like a bridge passage though it isn’t one. The Allegro port of the finale is built on a cowcall, and is headed ‘Shepherds Hymn‘. Like the first movement it deliberately avoids drama and obvious symphonic effect, though the climax is overwhelming,
’Egmont’ Overture, Op. 84
After Fidelio, Egmont is Beethoven’s most substantial dramatic score. As with the third Leonora overture, so the overture to Egmont is a grand tone poem summing up the emotional content
of the drama. Egmont, Prince of Gaure, saved Flanders from the French invasion, at a time in the sixteenth century when the Netherlands were under Spanish rule. He protested against the
decision to make Flanders a Spanish dependency and was arrested and condemned For treason through the machinations of the Duke of Alba, his enemy and the military governor of Flanders. In the overture we hear contrasted moods that express at once the conflict of patriotism and love, and of harsh Spain and suffering Flanders; this is a completely satisfying and convincing ambivalence that is music’s special property.