twice upon a “Pastorale” – Beethoven
“Summer Pastoral“ (1749)
__________
on my way to my metaphorical
Eiffel Tower, Beethoven’s Piano
Sonata no 15, the “Pastorale”,
his first to impress me, his
Opus 28, despite the notoriety
of the earlier “Pathétique”,
Opus 13, and of the “Moonlight”,
his Opus 27, no 2, splashy
showpieces, those last two, to
my mind, rather than revelatory,
I knew I was going to stop at the
Arche de Triomphe, if you’ll
allow me the developing allegory,
to visit the other “Pastorale”, the
6th, and my favourite, Symphony,
one of the few works which he
named, but where he also gives,
apart from tempo, in the usual
Italian, descriptive headings in
German, the culture that had
taken over the arts, essentially,
from the Italians, during the
18th Century
Erwachen heiterer Empfindungen
bei der Ankunft auf dem Lande,
he, for instance, instructs, or
Awakening of cheerful feelings on
arrival in the countryside, then
Scene by the brook, Merry
gathering of country folk, Thunder.
Storm, and finally Shepherd’s song.
Cheerful and thankful feelings after
the storm – five, unconventionally
already, movements, instead of the
usual three, or four, with headings
that look a lot like stage settings,
cues for a play, chapters in a story
it’s evident that music has explicitly
become, here, literature, movements
have been given a specific thrust,
a particular direction to follow, not
dance, but emotive, appealing to the
vocabulary of the senses, the
grammar of the heart, music as
graphic description, later we’ll even
get tone poems
sure, Vivaldi had written his “Four
Seasons“, 1723, but never, ever,
as precisely rendered as here,
Beethoven brings to life an actual
storm, bing, bang, pow, you hear,
as thunder cracks, rumbles,
crashes, not to mention the virtual
call, chirp, twitter of the various
birds he elicits bristling in the
rustling leaves, you’ll even hear
in the recovering countryside a
rainbow if you listen
music has become a language, a
medium of direct intelligent
communication, enough, indeed,
to verily inspire a century, indeed,
as well, beyond
you’ll also fall in love with Leonard
Bernstein here, who shows why
Leonard Bernstein remains ever,
indisputably, Leonard Bernstein,
beautiful, angelic, inspired
R ! chard
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