Excerpts from the book “Excellent Art 2024, vol. 4”

This art and gift book introduces 41 selected artists from 20 countries around the globe. The book invites art lovers to connect with the artworks through philosophical-poetic texts about the images and classical music. Due to its programmatic character, the Symphony No.6 of Ludwig van Beethoven is ideally suited to establishing a connection between painting and music. While the poems in this book were selected based on the musical message of its five movements, the artworks were created independently of it. Rather than making Beethoven’s composition a guiding principle throughout the book, the idea is that listening to it will increase readers’ sense of joy and relaxation while looking through its pages.

Beethoven in Vienna

From 1792 to his death, Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1827) lived in Vienna. During those 35 years, he moved countless times and often traveled, resulting in several Beethoven memorials in Vienna and surrounding areas today. The most famous site is the “Testament House” (see below), but the Pasqualati House is the place where he lived the longest, spending a total of eight years, and composing the opera “Fidelio”, “Für Elise”, and his symphonies No. 5 and No. 6 there. The historic buildings from the Baroque and Biedermeier periods are well preserved today. Beethoven’s former apartment is privately owned, but the same floor houses a biographical exhibition.

The text and the poems in this post are excerpts from the book “Excellent Art 2024, vol. 4”.

Both Mozart and Beethoven gave small concerts at Vienna’s oldest café, the “Café Frauenhuber”, which serves delicious Austrian Kaiserschmarrn. Beethoven admirers will also enjoy a visit to the “House of Music” with its famous sound staircase, and to Lobkowitz Palace, where the composer was often invited as a guest. Franz Joseph Maximilian von Lobkowitz, who owned the palace at the time, was an important patron to the composer. Beethoven dedicated several symphonies to him, some of which were premiered there. On December 22, 1808, the “Pastorale” and the “Symphony of Fate” premiered at the “Theater an der Wien”. Another site to mention is Beethoven’s birthplace in Bonn, which houses the largest and most diverse Beethoven collection in the world. The original manuscripts of the “Pastorale” and the “Moonlight Sonata” are also kept in Bonn.

Beethoven was initially buried at a local cemetery called “Währinger Ortsfriedhof”, where his original gravestone still stands. His eulogy was composed by Franz Grillparzer, and thousands of mourners escorted the composer to his final resting place. In 1888, his remains were transferred to an honorary grave site at the Central Cemetery “Zentralfriedhof”.

The “Pastoral Symphony”

According to Hector Berlioz, the most beautiful among Beethovens compositions

Ludwig van Beethoven liked to take a break from city life and relax in the countryside around Vienna. Like a haiku poet, he felt inspired by nature. Especially in his sixth Symphony, also called the “Pastoral Symphony”, the listener’s imagination is directed towards experiencing nature. Another source of inspiration to the composer was literature: one of his favorite books was the pantheistic work “Reflections On the Works of God in Nature and Providence: For Every Day in the Year” by Christoph Chr. Sturm. Beethoven was one of the first significant artists to believe in art’s moral mission in a humanistic rather than in a religious sense. He wrote most of his Symphony No. 6 between 1807 and 1808 in the villages of Heiligenstadt, Nussdorf and Grinzig outside Vienna.

The titles of its five movements suggest a programmatic work, but Beethoven himself described it as follows: “More than painting, this is an expression of feelings” – a real artist does not imitate but, being truly inspired, creates something altogether new. With its rocking rhythm and lyrical melodious sound, the symphony (apart from the fourth movement) creates an exceptionally relaxing atmosphere. Hector Berlioz called it the most beautiful of Beethoven’s compositions.Filled with inner peace, it has a deeply touching effect. The oscillating sounds in the cheerful pastoral key of F major fill the heart with sunshine, while dynamic swelling processes inspire happiness and joy.

On the trail of the “Pastoral”

Beethoven also included some avant-garde elements in this work: unlike all other symphonies, the “Pastoral Symphony” consists of five movements, with movements three, four and five merging into one another without breaks. In the first movement, spring is felt in all its freshness. With flowing violin themes, the second movement takes us along a quiet stream alive with the skillfully stylized song of nightingale (flute), quail (oboe), and cuckoo (clarinet). The scherzo in the third movement is a bizarre parody of village band music and peasant dances. Thunderstorms dominate the fourth movement as drumbeats imitate thunder and lightning, violins play the wind, and, finally, the gentle melody of an oboe makes the sun break through again. The fifth movement is a hymnic prayer to nature in the form of a shepherd’s song played by a clarinet, in which Beethoven draws on the Arcadian traditions of antiquity.

Nature lovers can best follow in Beethoven’s footsteps on a loop trail in the Viennese district of Döbling leading past Nussberg, Wildgrube, Schreiberbach, Beethovengang, Probusgasse, Pfarrplatz Heiligenstadt, and Eroicagasse, and featuring wonderful views of the Danube. In 1802 at Probusgasse 6, the composer wrote what became known as the “Heiligenstadt Testament” – a letter to his brothers never posted that shows his despair over his hearing impairment. Today’s Beethoven Museum also documents this predicament. Following his doctor’s advice, Beethoven often spent time at what was then the spa town of Heiligenstadt where he would go out exploring nature with his pen and notebook.

Fans of the “Pastoral Symphony” should take a walk along Schreiberbach brook whose gurgling sound may have audibly influenced this composition. The bronze bust on the two kilometer path called “Beethovengang” commemorates a walk Beethoven took with his secretary Anton Schindler. Leaning against an elm tree, Beethoven is said to have uttered the legendary words: “Here, I wrote the scene by the stream, and the yellowhammers, the quails, the nightingales and the cuckoos wrote it with me.” It should be noted, however, that Schindler’s Beethoven biography is considered unreliable.

Beethoven wrote his “Pastoral Symphony” at the height of his mastery. He worked on it in diffrent places (see p. 120) and also at “Beethoven-Grillparzer-Haus”. Parts of Symphony No. 9 were written at “Beethovenhaus” on Pfarrplatz (now called “Heuriger Mayer”). Beethoven spent the summer months of 1818 and 1819 at Hafner-Haus in Mödling, which today, offers a historical glimpse into the composer’s study and living room, and has served as a location for several international movie productions. It is also said that Beethoven might have loved to buy a house in Mödling because of the beautiful landscape..

Bird Voices

The light oscillates.
Listen! Peewit, peewit, peewit…
A springtime walk.

Sitting proudly on
Its fence post, the thrush trills, plumes
And flutters away.

The silent expanse
Of May green, only the cuckoo
Calls from the woods.

The male nightingale
Sings its nighttime serenade
Like a troubadour.

When witch hazel and
Hazel bloom, the greenfinch’s
Melody is heard.

Listen! Somewhere in
The oak wood, the oriole
Is playing its flute.

Sources: Please see the authors, poet and bibliography in the above link to the online book (imprint at the end of the book)!