Sunday Classics preview: And now for something pretty different -- Beethoven's NEXT symphonic slow movement

Leonard Bernstein conducts the Vienna Philharmonic in the second movement of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony.

by Ken

I promised a companion piece to the one we heard in last night's preview, the flowing but muscular slow movement of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony). And pieces don't come much more companionable than Beethoven's Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, written in such quick succession that there must have been overlap in the composer's imagining of these two works, which nevertheless -- or perhaps for that very reason -- are staggeringly different works. But they came into the world together:

The Fifth Symphony was premiered at a mammoth concert at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna consisting entirely of Beethoven premieres, and directed by Beethoven himself. The concert went for more than four hours. The two symphonies appeared on the program in reverse order: the Sixth was played first, and the Fifth appeared in the second half. The program was as follows:

The Sixth Symphony
Aria: "Ah, perfido," Op. 65
The Gloria movement of the Mass in C major
The Fourth Piano Concerto (played by Beethoven himself)
[Intermission]
The Fifth Symphony
The Sanctus and Benedictus movements of the C major Mass
A solo piano improvisation played by Beethoven
The Choral Fantasy

Yikes!

For tonight's preview we're going to do basically the same thing we did last night with the slow movement of the Fifth Symphony. We're going to hear first a stripped-down version of the second movement of the Pastoral in the form of Liszt's solo-piano transcription and then two "real" performances, again nothing extreme, just one a little faster, and striving for a somewhat different overall effect.

As between these two monumental symphonies, of course we would hear a more obvious, even violent contrast if we heard instead their first movements, and we'll get to that tomorrow. But I think the contrast between the two slow movements is if anything more revealing.

BEETHOVEN: Symphony No. 6 in F, Op. 68 (Pastoral):
ii. Scene by the brook: Andante molto mosso

Arranged for piano solo by Franz Liszt --

Cyprien Katsaris, piano. Teldec, recorded 1980s

And in its original form --

Berlin Philharmonic, Claudio Abbado, cond. DG, recorded May 2000

London Symphony Orchestra, Wyn Morris, cond. Carlton Classics, recorded Feb. 9-10, 1988


IN TOMORROW'S SUNDAY CLASSICS POST

If you guessed that we're going to be savoring the pretty much unmatched creative outburst that produced these two stupendous masterpieces, two pillars of the classical repertory (I'm tempted to say "of Western civilization"), you guessed right.

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