The sixth of Beethoven's nine symphonies, the Pastoral, was first performed at a concert in Vienna in December 1808. The occasion was an important one for the composer, since it was likely to prove the only significant source of income for him that year. In preparation for the event he had put aside work on his projected opera Macbeth and on the alternative text of Bradamante, both supplied by Heinrich von Collin, and assembled a programme of phenomenal length. The works played included the Fifth Symphony, the Fourth Piano Concerto, a piano fantasia, items for soloists and chorus and, in conclusion, a Fantasia for the Pianoforte which ends with the gradual entrance of the entire orchestra and the introduction of the choruses as a finale, the Choral Fantasia

Predictably the concert was an embarrassment to Beethoven's friends, compelled to sit for four hours in the bitterly cold Theater-an-der-Wien. As one otherwise sympathetic observer reported, it proved possible to have too much of a good thing, and still more of a loud. The concert was under-rehearsed, and Beethoven had met considerable opposition from members of the orchestra. In the Choral Fantasia, instructions about repeats had been misunderstood, so that the work had to be started again, and Beethoven intervened with audible comments on mistakes. Nevertheless the Sixth Symphony, which happily opened the concert, was well enough received, in spite of its unusual length.

The advertisement for Beethoven's December concert billed the Pastoral Symphony as A Recollection of Country Life, to be described by the composer, in a careful attempt to dispel any suspicion that he had written a crude imitation of nature, as more an expression of feeling than tone-painting. In some ways the work may be seen as a conclusion and summary of a tradition of music inspired by the country, although the Wordsworthian suggestion of emotion recollected in tranquility is very much of its period.

Writer: Keith Anderson