Descriptive or programmatic music, understood in its broadest sense, has always offered mediocre musicians an easy means of exploitation. Particularly close to Beethoven in terms of both period and subject—and perhaps not unknown to him—is a modest Musical Portrait of Nature by the Swabian composer J. H. Knecht, published around 1784. However, by declaring that he intended to express feelings rather than engage in tone-painting, Beethoven likely meant to emphasise that—unlike most of his predecessors, and despite the formal similarities reinforced by the very use of subtitles—the substance of his composition was rooted in inner experience: in other words, true music, and not curiosity, jest, artifice, or mere depiction.

The countryside was, for Beethoven’s complex and tempestuous soul, a constant source of serenity. Anecdotes, fragments of diaries and letters, testimonies from friends—all reveal this throughout the pages of the great book of his life, from which there is no need here to quote well-known passages. How such a sentiment was translated into music, using musical “pastoral” elements that were reimagined and relived by a uniquely gifted mind and imagination—transforming traditional material into a refined and personal poem—has already been discussed elsewhere.

One should also not forget the influence that the work of the Enlightenment thinker Christian Sturm may have had on Beethoven’s feeling for nature at the time: Betrachtungen über die Werke Gottes im Reiche der Natur und der Vorsehung (Reflections on the Works of God in the Realm of Nature and Providence).

The principal theme of the Allegro ma non troppo—which some believe to be derived from a Slavic folk song—is gentle and peaceful; the second theme has the character of a simple rustic tune. Around these two, the entire movement unfolds: a musical depiction of the feelings one experiences upon arriving in the countryside, full of a charm that emerges from purely musical means—through melody and instrumental development alike, where even the secondary and derived elements contribute, with transparent analogies of form and idea.

The Andante con moto has an idyllic character, permeated by a subtle sense of dreamy melancholy. The only materially imitative elements appear towards the end, in the birdcalls of the nightingale, quail, and cuckoo—combined into a kind of little cadence in the tonic key. Is this a questionable joke in terms of taste, or perhaps a caricatured allusion to some overly contrived “predecessor”?

Even the annotation Beethoven added in a sketch referring to the basic figure in the violas and cellos, suggestive of the murmuring brook—“the larger the brook becomes, the lower the sound”—indicates the external origin of an image that was ultimately elevated to the level of purely musical inwardness.

The Merry gathering of country folk, with its themes and gestures drawn from gentle or rustic peasant dances, leads with increasing intensity to the almost frenzied outburst of the Allegro in 2/4 time. This serves as a necessary preparation for the Storm, which would not achieve its full dramatic power were it not for the preceding contrast, nor would it so naturally flow into the Hymn of Thanksgiving that follows.

To the exuberance of unrestrained and spontaneous joy, nature suddenly responds with the terrifying spectacle of its upheaval. All feelings of trust and love fall away from the naive human soul. Outbursts, pleas, pauses filled with dread, tragic cries. Gradually the fury subsides; a quiet voice rises and falls in the lower registers, like the onset of peace, reaffirming the original key of F major. And while distant, muffled rumblings are still faintly heard, and ghostly flashes briefly flicker, a sweet melody arches gently into a cantilena.

This is the same figure from the initial stormy movement, now expanded and transformed into something entirely different; it also resembles a famous chorale from Bach’s St Matthew Passion (itself apparently derived from the music of an old love song). A bagpipe makes its presence felt, while the heavy double pedal accompanying it (which so scandalised the 19th-century critic Ulibicheff for its “monstrous coupling of the keys of C and F”) still resonates with a quality of primordial nature.

Then begins the lilting melody of the Pastoral Hymn of Thanksgiving, which gradually grows richer with each repetition, through added instrumental parts and changing timbres. Its rhythm dominates amid the varied figures of the symphonic development, and remains unchanged in the second theme (which, like the first, is said to have Slavic folk origins, according to the aforementioned collection by Kuhac).

As the movement continues, a varied form gently unfolds over the undulating rhythm, while the original motif returns more than once to reassert itself. Deep, solemn harmonies, made even more so by the fuller use of wind instruments (woodwinds, horns, trumpets, trombones), lend the conclusion a distinctly choral, sacred character. Yet the presence of the pastoral element remains ever perceptible, as an expression of a primordial sense of peace and faith.

 [By Biamonti Giovanni – Catalogo cronologico e tematico delle opere di Beethoven comprese quelle inedite e gli abbozzi non utilizzati, Torino, ILTE 1968]