Thus in the Pastoral symphony, to suggest the rustic calm and the tranquillity of the soul in contact with Nature, he did not seek curious harmonic conglomerations, but a simple, restrained melody which embraces only the interval of a sixth (from fa to re). This is enough to create in us the sentiment of repose—as much by its quasi-immobility as by the duration of this immobility. The exposition of this melody based on the interval of a sixth is repeated with different timbres, but musically the same, for fifty-two measures without interruption. In an analogous manner Wagner portrayed the majestic monotony of the river in the introduction to Rheingold. Thus far the landscape is uninhabited. The second musical idea introduces two human beings, man and woman, force and tenderness. The second musical thought is the thematic base of the whole work. In the scherzo the effect of sudden immobility produced by the bagpipe tune of the strolling musician (the oboe solo, followed by the horn), imposing itself on the noisy joy of the peasants, is due to the cause named above; here, with the exception of one note, the melody moves within the interval of a fifth.
The storm does not pretend to frighten the hearer. The insufficient kettledrums are enough to suggest the thunder, but in four movements of the five there is not a fragment of development in the minor mode. The key of F minor, reserved for the darkening of the landscape hitherto sunny and gay, produces a sinking of the heart and the distressing restlessness that accompany the approach of the tempest. Calm returns with the ambitus of the sixth, and then the shepherd’s song leads to a burst of joyfulness. The two themes are the masculine and feminine elements exposed in the first movement.
According to M. d’Indy the andante is the most admirable expression of true nature in musical literature. Only some passages of Siegfried and Parsifal are comparable. Conductors usually take this andante at too slow a pace and thus destroy the alert poetry of the section. The brook furnishes the basic movement, expressive melodies arise, and the feminine theme of the first allegro reappears, alone, disquieted by the absence of its mate. Each section is completed by a pure and prayer-like melody. It is the artist who prays, who loves, who crowns the diverse divisions of his work by a species of Alleluia.
It has been said that several of the themes in this symphony were taken from Styrian and Carinthian folk songs. It is dedicated to Prince von Lobkowitz and Count Rasoumowsky. The work was published in 1809.
SYMPHONY NO. 7, IN A MAJOR, OP. 92
I. Poco sostenuto; vivace II. Allegretto III. Presto; assai meno presto; tempo primo IV. Allegro con brio
The rhapsodists have had their say; the commentators have pried and conjectured; the later symphonies are still sublime in their grandeur. They well-nigh express the inexpressible.
Nor have the legends, fondly believed for years, done injury to the music. It matters not whether the Seventh symphony be a description of Germany exulting in its deliverance from the French yoke, or the apotheosis of the dance; whether the allegretto picture a procession in the catacombs or be the love dream of an odalisque. Whenever the music is played, whenever it comes into the mind, it awakens new thoughts and each one dreams his own dreams.
Each writer in turn publishes in print or by word of mouth his little explanation, but Beethoven broods, mysterious, gigantic, above commentators, above even conductors when they misunderstand him, or plume themselves upon a new and striking interpretation, or in their endeavor to grasp and convey to others the essential greatness of the composer put their trust in din and speed.
