Ludwig Van Beethoven, 1770-1827
Sonata Op. 79, "Cuckoo" (1809)
Sonata Op. 28, "Pastoral" (1801)
Sonata Op. 31, no. 3, "The Hunt" (1802)
“How happy I am to be able to wander among bushes and herbs, under trees and over rocks; no man can love the country as I love it.” –Beethoven, to Baroness von Drossdick
Beethoven’s life-long ardor for nature outlasted every other love he had. One of my favourite stories about Beethoven's childhood is that his family's home on the Rheingasse in Bonn had two telescopes positioned by the attic windows where he and his brothers played, from which on clear days he could see a distance of 20 miles. I love the image of little Ludwig at a telescope, looking for the most distant point possible and then trying to go further yet. What a fitting metaphor for his life's work!
Young Ludwig and his father took long excursions together into the countryside, sometimes lasting several days; they hiked up rugged hills and through leafy woods, climbed over dark slate outcrops, gazed down deep gorges, and felt the power of the ever-present Rhine. As an adult, Beethoven nostalgically recalled the “mysterious fir forests” and the “sweet stillness of the woods” to which he longed to return, and declared that “I never feel entirely well except when I am among scenes of unspoilt nature”. During the hot and dusty Viennese summers he fled to the countryside and dreamed of buying a small house there; and as communication with people around him became increasingly difficult due to encroaching deafness, he spent much time tramping across the countryside alone, compositional notebook in hand. Charles Neate, an English pianist who sometimes accompanied Beethoven on long walks, claimed that he had never met anyone “who so delighted in Nature or so thoroughly enjoyed flower or clouds or other natural objects”. Other Viennese friends tell us that Beethoven, who frequently moved lodgings within the city, refused to live in a home unless there were trees nearby, and that he insisted on daily walks even in torrential rain. Beethoven’s interactions with nature provided the relief, inspiration, and comfort that he often lacked in social settings.
However, Beethoven also had experiences with nature that were more terrifying than utopic. In 1784 his family’s home on the Rheingasse in Bonn was flooded as the great Ice Floods overwhelmed the region, and the 13-year-old Beethoven made a perilous escape across the roofs of neighbouring houses; and in 1816 most of Europe experienced the “year without a summer” as a result of the eruption of Mt. Tambora in Indonesia, leading to failed crops and subsequent food shortages. Beethoven may have had moments of rhapsodic outbursts ("Who can give complete expression to the ecstasy of the woods!", he exclaimed), but he was far too clear-eyed to accept the ruling class's interpretation of countryside life as one of quaint simplicity. The popular aristocratic tropes, which equated retreat from the material world with a corresponding quality of inner life, celebrated a type of vacuous spiritual achievement completely foreign to Beethoven. While the 18th century nobility built imitation hameaux and played at pastoral clichés, Beethoven squelched through mud, wiped rivulets of rain from his face, and tramped long miles until every muscle ached.
It's therefore no surprise that Beethoven's compositions parallel a natural world brimming with the struggle to survive and overcome. His musical language is imbued with the great effort that underlies every step forward, and it opens the door to a profound inner experience. On the cover of the first edition of his Pastoral Symphony is the inscription Mehr Ausdruck der Empfindung als Malerei ("an expression of feeling rather than a painting"). Beethoven is asking us not to fixate on literal images of nature, but rather on the elevated response that they awaken in us. We can only guess at what Beethoven might have thought about on his long walks, but we feel the immensity of feeling in his words, “In the country it seems as if every tree said to me: ‘Holy! Holy!’”
The descriptive titles of the three sonatas on this program were all added by Beethoven's editors, likely inspired by the musical references to outdoor country life: the cuckoo calls and the rustic country dances in Op. 79; the musette bagpipe drone and gigue in Op. 28; and the bucolic hunting horns in Op. 31, no. 3.
When I first learned these sonatas as a child, I was charmed by the birdsong and the dance rhythms (it was fun to play the leaping "cuckoo" figures as fast I could, in defiance of every reasonable tempo marking). As the years have passed, I've grown into the realization that the true magic of these sonatas doesn't lie in their literal depictions of nature, but in how Beethoven transfigured these depictions into a resonant universal language that speaks to our innermost being, and I love discovering new revelations with each replaying of these works.
Sonata Op. 79, "Cuckoo" (1809)
Sonata Op. 28, "Pastoral" (1801)
Sonata Op. 31, no. 3, "The Hunt" (1802)
“How happy I am to be able to wander among bushes and herbs, under trees and over rocks; no man can love the country as I love it.” –Beethoven, to Baroness von Drossdick
Beethoven’s life-long ardor for nature outlasted every other love he had. One of my favourite stories about Beethoven's childhood is that his family's home on the Rheingasse in Bonn had two telescopes positioned by the attic windows where he and his brothers played, from which on clear days he could see a distance of 20 miles. I love the image of little Ludwig at a telescope, looking for the most distant point possible and then trying to go further yet. What a fitting metaphor for his life's work!
Young Ludwig and his father took long excursions together into the countryside, sometimes lasting several days; they hiked up rugged hills and through leafy woods, climbed over dark slate outcrops, gazed down deep gorges, and felt the power of the ever-present Rhine. As an adult, Beethoven nostalgically recalled the “mysterious fir forests” and the “sweet stillness of the woods” to which he longed to return, and declared that “I never feel entirely well except when I am among scenes of unspoilt nature”. During the hot and dusty Viennese summers he fled to the countryside and dreamed of buying a small house there; and as communication with people around him became increasingly difficult due to encroaching deafness, he spent much time tramping across the countryside alone, compositional notebook in hand. Charles Neate, an English pianist who sometimes accompanied Beethoven on long walks, claimed that he had never met anyone “who so delighted in Nature or so thoroughly enjoyed flower or clouds or other natural objects”. Other Viennese friends tell us that Beethoven, who frequently moved lodgings within the city, refused to live in a home unless there were trees nearby, and that he insisted on daily walks even in torrential rain. Beethoven’s interactions with nature provided the relief, inspiration, and comfort that he often lacked in social settings.
However, Beethoven also had experiences with nature that were more terrifying than utopic. In 1784 his family’s home on the Rheingasse in Bonn was flooded as the great Ice Floods overwhelmed the region, and the 13-year-old Beethoven made a perilous escape across the roofs of neighbouring houses; and in 1816 most of Europe experienced the “year without a summer” as a result of the eruption of Mt. Tambora in Indonesia, leading to failed crops and subsequent food shortages. Beethoven may have had moments of rhapsodic outbursts ("Who can give complete expression to the ecstasy of the woods!", he exclaimed), but he was far too clear-eyed to accept the ruling class's interpretation of countryside life as one of quaint simplicity. The popular aristocratic tropes, which equated retreat from the material world with a corresponding quality of inner life, celebrated a type of vacuous spiritual achievement completely foreign to Beethoven. While the 18th century nobility built imitation hameaux and played at pastoral clichés, Beethoven squelched through mud, wiped rivulets of rain from his face, and tramped long miles until every muscle ached.
It's therefore no surprise that Beethoven's compositions parallel a natural world brimming with the struggle to survive and overcome. His musical language is imbued with the great effort that underlies every step forward, and it opens the door to a profound inner experience. On the cover of the first edition of his Pastoral Symphony is the inscription Mehr Ausdruck der Empfindung als Malerei ("an expression of feeling rather than a painting"). Beethoven is asking us not to fixate on literal images of nature, but rather on the elevated response that they awaken in us. We can only guess at what Beethoven might have thought about on his long walks, but we feel the immensity of feeling in his words, “In the country it seems as if every tree said to me: ‘Holy! Holy!’”
The descriptive titles of the three sonatas on this program were all added by Beethoven's editors, likely inspired by the musical references to outdoor country life: the cuckoo calls and the rustic country dances in Op. 79; the musette bagpipe drone and gigue in Op. 28; and the bucolic hunting horns in Op. 31, no. 3.
When I first learned these sonatas as a child, I was charmed by the birdsong and the dance rhythms (it was fun to play the leaping "cuckoo" figures as fast I could, in defiance of every reasonable tempo marking). As the years have passed, I've grown into the realization that the true magic of these sonatas doesn't lie in their literal depictions of nature, but in how Beethoven transfigured these depictions into a resonant universal language that speaks to our innermost being, and I love discovering new revelations with each replaying of these works.