Symphony No. 6 in F Major

Beethoven’s Sixth stands out among his symphonies for several reasons. For one thing it has a title, "Pastoral", and the titles of the five movements suggest a programme, relating the music to Beethoven’s experiences during his much-valued summer holidays in the countryside to the north of Vienna. The music feels more expansive, less driven than in the previous symphonies, and there are memorable touches of musical illustration: birdsong, peasants’ merrymaking, the murmur of a brook and, at the climax, a terrific storm. For Beethoven, it was "more a matter of feeling than of tone-painting", and the progression, from joyous contemplation of rural scenes through elemental drama to gratitude for the strength and comfort offered by nature, is engineered as magnificently as in any of the purely numbered symphonies. But the pictorialism is deeply touching, and it results in beautiful and thrilling textures unlike anything else in Beethoven. It is worth remembering that the man who created these marvellous sounds was now seriously deaf and was relying on his memories—some of them distant—in order to relive them in music. Beethoven’s least conventionally "heroic" symphony therefore tells a story of inner heroism as impressive as in any of his more outwardly dramatic works. Small wonder, then, that it has remained one of his most popular achievements.