Symphonie Nr. 6 F-Dur op. 68 – 8. Teil

Beethoven’s Fifth and Sixth Symphonies were both completed in 1808 and dedicated to his long-term benefactors Prince Franz Joseph Maximilian Lobkowitz and Count Andriy Razumovsky, who made his palace available for the premieres of several Beethoven string quartets.

The Pastoral is the only one of Beethoven’s symphonies to have been written in five movements, and he connects the last three together using a novel technique. The “merry gathering of country folk” in the middle movement leads straight into the storm setting of the fourth movement, whose chorale-like conclusion is followed in turn by the climatic “shepherd’s song” of the final movement. This extract includes the transition from the third to the fourth movement. Its unmistakable tone is provided in part by the first use of a trombone in classical symphony.

The innovative soundscape receives particular attention in this 1936 recording by Bruno Walter (1876–1962) with the Vienna Philharmonic. After the National Socialists came to power in Germany in 1933, Walter was forced to resign his post as Kapellmeister in Leipzig, and returned to the Vienna State Opera, where he had previously worked under Gustav Mahler between 1901 and 1912. After serving as its director from 1936 to 1938, he emigrated to the United States.
(Constanze Köhn)