Symphony No. 6 (Beethoven)
The Symphony No. 6 in F major, Op. 68, also known as the Pastoral Symphony (German: Pastorale[1]), is a symphony composed by Ludwig van Beethoven and completed in 1808. One of Beethoven's few works containing explicitly programmatic content,[2] the symphony was first performed alongside his fifth symphony in the Theater an der Wien on 22 December 1808 in a four-hour concert.[3][4]
"Pastoral Symphony" redirects here. For other uses, see Pastoral Symphony (disambiguation).Symphony No. 6
Pastoral Symphony
68
1802–1808
About 40 minutes
Five
Ludwig van Beethoven
Background[edit]
Beethoven was a lover of nature who spent a great deal of his time on walks in the country. He frequently left Vienna to work in rural locations. The composer said that the Sixth Symphony is "more the expression of feeling than painting",[5] a point underlined by the title of the first movement.
The first sketches of the Pastoral Symphony appeared in 1802. It was composed simultaneously with Beethoven's more famous Fifth Symphony. Both symphonies were premiered in a long and under-rehearsed concert in the Theater an der Wien in Vienna on 22 December 1808.
Frank A. D'Accone suggested that Beethoven borrowed the programmatic ideas (a shepherd's pipe, birds singing, streams flowing, and a thunderstorm) for his five-movement narrative layout from Le Portrait musical de la Nature ou Grande Symphonie, which was composed by Justin Heinrich Knecht (1752–1817) in 1784.[6]