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Amy Balcomb (510035)Advanced Music Composition

Critical Review

To what extent are Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony examples of programme music, and how effective are they at

capturing emotion and telling a story?

By Amy Balcomb (510035)

When I first started composing my 20-minute fantasia based upon Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ I didn’t realise that I was inadvertently creating programme music, which is any instrumental piece that conveys an extra-musical meaning, whether that be a story, an aspect of nature, a literary idea or a scenic description; the music will be deemed to be ‘programmatic’.

What I hope to achieve within this essay is to look closely at two very different pieces of music that are examples of this genre, find enough evidence within each piece to substantiate this, and conclude upon their effectiveness.

Beethoven considered his Symphony No.6 in F (‘Pastoral’), Op.68, to be, in his own words, ‘more than an expression of feeling than painting’1 and unnamed editors at the Encyclopaedia Britannica suggest programme music was a uniquely 19 th century phenomenon beginning with Beethoven.

However, we shouldn’t overlook the contributions made by much earlier musicians, including virtuoso Italian violinist and composer Antonio Vivaldi’s violin concertos, The Four Seasons, Op.8. Vivaldi’s virtuoso skills as a violinist were highlighted in this piece, and it was the perfect vehicle to display not only his personal mastery of the instrument, but his skills as a composer, too.

It was another violinist, Frederick Niecks, who provided the first survey on programme music 2. It set out to chart examples of programme music from the 16th to the 19th century.

His preface reiterates the difficulty in understanding what programme music is:

‘The primary difficulty in the discussion of programme music has always been the non-existence of a correct and adequate definition…the definitions are too narrow…they should embrace also music with the programme merely indicated by a title, and music the programme of which is unrevealed.’(Niecks 1960: 3)

1 Phillip Huscher, Program Notes – Symphony No.6 in F Major, Op.68 (Pastoral) (www.cso.org), 12 Frederick Niecks, Programme Music in the Last Four Centuries: A Contribution to the History of Musical Expression (United States: Hardpress Publishing, 1960), entire book

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Critical Review

Nieck confirms people’s expectations about programme music, that what it sets out to achieve can hinder their understanding and appreciation for it.

Leslie Orrey3 states that;

‘To study programme music is to embark on an integrated course involving literature, painting, history, geography, folklore; we have to pay attention to aesthetics and philosophy, and are inevitably drawn into a consideration of music as a component of the social and artistic life of the times.’(Orrey 1975: 10)

This is an important consideration; music has a wider context, which places a variety of influences upon it. However, this review will look at two different bodies of music and evaluate them both in their own right and comparatively to determine whether they offer us examples of programme music and if so, how this was achieved through careful analysis of the scores.

It is unclear when Vivaldi’s set of four violin concertos were first published but many agree that it was around 1725. ‘Le Quattro staggioni’ formed part of Vivaldi’s Opus 8 collection, a set of 12 concertos seven of which were descriptive; ‘The Storm at Sea’, ‘Pleasure’, ‘The Hunt’, and of course ‘The Four Seasons’. Vivaldi was therefore explicit in title at least for much of this collection.

‘Commentators have naturally regarded Op.8 as the clearest manifestation of Vivaldi’s concern for extra-musical meaning, in recognition of both the programmatic nature of The Four Seasons and the concentration of works with titles in the set as a whole.” (Everett 1996: 50)4

The ‘Four Seasons’ were based upon a set of four sonnets, the author of which has never been ascertained. Each sonnet is told through its own concerto, which is divided into three movements (fast-slow-fast). Vivaldi then notated within each concerto score the corresponding line of the verse.

3 Lesley Orrey, Programme Music (Cambridge, UK: Davis-Poynter, 1975), entire book4 Paul Everett, Vivaldi The Four Seasons & Other Concertos, Op.8 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), entire book

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Critical Review This is a very prescriptive and literal way of making the music tell a story, and for the musicians playing, they have the advantage of seeing at any given point exactly what Vivaldi was saying. For the listener, however, things are not quite as obvious; was Vivaldi able to truly ‘describe’ these sonnets? What musical techniques did he employ to really bring these seasons to life?

For my analysis I began by writing the English translation of each line of the sonnet as indicated by Vivaldi onto the music. This gave me a ‘quick reference’ at various points and showed me what he was trying to express in the music.

I studied an Italian version of the score5. It was the only copy that I could find online that felt authentic; I particularly liked that it was published in the same country as its author.

There are many points in the concertos that tell a specific story, but the following are a selection of examples where I believe Vivaldi has commanded the use of specific musical techniques to convey something ‘extra-musical’.

‘Spring’ is the first of the concertos and the opening tonality of E major is happy and joyful, with a uniform homophonic texture and repetition in the opening theme.

We are introduced to the ‘Canto de Gl’uccelli; the song of the bird’ at bar 15. He adds the verse text here too, which states ‘birds cheerfully greet spring with joyful song.’ One can observe, both in the decorative trills in the solo violin line, and the rapid scalic figure in the second violin, what Vivaldi is describing here; bird-call, although the type of bird is unknown:

Vivaldi’s ‘Spring’ – bars 13-16

5 Antonio Vivaldi, Concerto in Mi Maggiore (Italy: G. Ricordi & C. Editori, 1950), entire score.

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Critical Review At bar 45, the verse from the sonnet announces ‘thunder, elected to announce it, come and cover the air with a black cloak’. One, therefore, expects to hear a musical interpretation of a thunderstorm but with equal measure, the build-up, the atmospheric change and tension that comes before it, too?

I wasn’t disappointed. Vivaldi creates dramatic tension by alternating very low demi-semiquaver passages (thunder) with much higher semiquaver triplets for the soloist (lightening):

Vivaldi’s ‘Spring’ – bars 44-46 (the ‘thunder’)

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Critical Review

Vivaldi’s ‘Spring’ – bars 49-50 (the ‘lightening’)

In the second concerto, ‘Summer’, we hear a specific reference to ‘Il cucco’ at bar 31 in the soloist’s part; the lowest note played forms a minor 3rd interval, and a recognisable ‘cuc-koo’ sound:

Vivaldi’s ‘Summer’ – bar 31

And at bar 78, Vivaldi attempts to show us ‘gentle breezes’, with the soloist and violin parts playing a unison triplet semiquaver passage, which serves to create a light, shimmery texture that maintains a gentle forward motion:

Vivaldi’s ‘Summer’ – bars 78-81

In the third concerto ‘Autumn’, the celebration of the harvest opens the first movement with villagers’ dancing and singing. Vivaldi fittingly returns us to a happy, positive major tonality and a unison dance-like rhythm:

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Critical Review

Vivaldi’s ‘Autumn’ – bars 1-3

In amongst the revelry, Vivaldi uses a rapidly descending and ascending scale in the soloist part that weaves chaotically at bar 32. With the accompanying text translated as ‘And the liquor of Bacchus turned on so many’, Vivaldi describes a drunkard with a panache, succinct astuteness:


The start of the third movement at bar 161 sees the description of a galloping horse with a hunt. The sonnet text here states ‘At dawn the hunters are off to the hunt. With horns, rifles and dogs.’

The rhythm here is dotted and has a bounding quality, suitably suggestive of quick-paced horses on the chase:

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Critical Review


The pursued, as well as the pursuers, is depicted from bar 236. ‘The wild beast flees’, and to show it, Vivaldi’s soloist darts around, the panicked motion in its triplet semiquaver patterns moving up and down:


We reach the coldest temperature of the four concertos in ‘Winter’; ‘to tremble from cold in the icy snow’ greets us at the start of the first movement. F minor tonality combines with staccato articulation and trill decorations to suggest the freezing cold:

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Critical Review

Vivaldi’s ‘Winter’ – bars 1-4

Fast-paced, repetitive notes are Vivaldi’s answer to keeping warm, with accompanying text from bar 23 ‘to stamp one’s feet from the cold. To run, stamping our feet every moment’. It’s simple yet effective imagery:

References:Websites:


The start of the stamping can be seen in bar 21 with the soloist and 1st violin’s unison F staccato semiquavers. This becomes a little more frenetic with the addition of the demisemiquavers on beat 3 of bar 22, which is reiterated in bar 23.

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Critical ReviewThe octave notes at the start of bar 23 suggests the stamping from one foot to another, an action of importance because we see this occur within each instrument in this bar.

Things get even colder by bar 47; teeth are chattering. Here we see high registers from the soloist and 1st violin, very fast rhythms, and double-stopping from the soloist that sees intervals (or teeth) moving (chattering) close together:


Vivaldi, aided by lines from sonnets, successfully illustrated unique, extra-musical aspects of nature’s four different seasons with distinct and interesting techniques. The trilling of solo instruments to suggest birdcall was particularly imaginative, as was the use of contrasting registers and rhythms to conjure up the differing thunder and lightning characteristics of a thunderstorm.

Breezes that wafted through the quartet upon light, upward triplet figures shimmered and vibrated the air, whilst a chaotic, stumbling, unpredictable melodic motif suitably described a merry, drunken villager. And my favourite technique of the concertos; the dotted, bounding rhythm of horses hooves.

It would be easy to rely upon and take the sonnet texts within these scores at face value. Yet upon closer inspection, it is delightful and eye-opening to see how ingenious Vivaldi applied his compositional skills; he truly did paint with his music.

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Critical Review

Early sketches of Beethoven’s 6th Symphony, the ‘Pastoral’, date back to 1802. However, it was composed between 1807-08 and Beethoven spent considerable time in Heilingenstadt, a rural retreat near Vienna where he would take long walks in the countryside with his notebooks jotting down themes – trickling streams, bird call. His self-confessed love of nature was evident in a letter that he wrote to his friend Therese Malfatti in the summer of 1808 – ‘How happy I am to be able to walk among the shrubs, the trees, the woods, the grass and the rocks!’6

With this symphony, Beethoven wanted to evoke the depiction of an image. This and his suggestive title for the piece and even for each movement are synonymous with programme music. However, he felt that ‘it is left to the listener to find out the situations…anyone that has formed any idea of rural life does not need titles to imagine the composer’s intentions.’ But despite a lack of sonnets, Beethoven still managed the occasional ‘in-score’ text to deepen the understanding.

The romantic period was different in many ways to Vivaldi’s Baroque, in instrumentation, style and form. Everything was bigger, better, more expansive, and without detouring further, I was curious to see if such periodic contrasts would in any way affect the ability of either composer to convey their extra-musical meanings. We have already seen that even with his small ensemble, Vivaldi’s ambitions were not hampered. Let us see how Beethoven went about his programmatic endeavors.

For the purposes of this review, I chose to study a score from the CCARH (Centre for Computer Aided Research in the Humanities)7 for the simple reason that it was the clearest version that I could find online.

Movement 1 is titled: “Awakening of cheerful feelings upon arrival in the country”. This suggests that we should expect a happy, untroubled feeling in this opening movement. It is in sonata form with a light, skipping rhythm heard throughout, which is demonstrated in the opening four bars in the 1st violin:

Beethoven’s ‘Pastoral’ Symphony, 1st Mvmt – bars 1-4

Beethoven opens his symphony in F major. The pastoral lifestyle was aimed at urban audiences; it showed them an idealised life that concerned itself with shepherds herding their flocks, subjected to the elements.

This opening theme is simple, as though embracing the charms of the countryside.

6 Prof. Iulian Munteanu, All About Beethoven (Romania: 2004) (www.all-about-beethoven.com), 17 Ludwig van Beethoven, Symphony No. 6 in F Major, Op.68 (Pastoral) (United States: CCARH), entire score

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Critical ReviewAccompanying this is the cello and viola playing a sustained pedal note, reminiscent of a bagpipe drone that reflects folk and country dances:


We hear Beethoven’s suggestion of bird-call at various points throughout this movement, one example being in the flute’s grace notes in bar 42:


I think Beethoven wants us to feel the wonder and the joy of wandering through beautiful scenery. Pleasure is conveyed with the use of 3rd and 6th intervals; harmonically they are consonant, diatonic; they make sense. The harmony is, therefore, enjoyable to listen to.

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Critical ReviewMovement 2 called ‘Scene by the Brook’ describes the scene near to the brook, not merely the movement of the water; I interpreted this to be Beethoven wanting to depict sensations rather than specific images.

A brook would suggest gentle, steady rhythms, with tranquil harmonies. We get the first suggestion of flowing water in the opening legato quavers in the strings:

Beethoven’s ‘Pastoral’ Symphony, 2nd Mvmt – bars 1-2

Bird-call is once again revisited in this movement; grace notes in bar 3 of the first violins:

Beethoven’s ‘Pastoral’ Symphony, 2nd Mvmt - bar 3

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Critical Review And bar 9 of the clarinets and bassoons:

Beethoven’s ‘Pastoral’ Symphony, 2nd Mvmt - bars 8-9

And at the start of bar 19, Beethoven suggests a hunt gathering in the distance with a fanfare-like motif in the 2nd violins, horns and clarinets:


One could also argue that Beethoven’s use of steady movement and modulation in the harmonic structure could suggest the swift motion of running water; his notation of semiquavers is continuous; from one phrase to another, there is no break.

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Critical Review A particular section stood out for me; bars 21-25 moves from B-flat to F major, and bars 25-27 moves again from F to C major:



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Critical Review


This section came to my attention because of Beethoven’s fluidity of part writing in the 2nd violins, violas and cellos; it conveyed movement, a continual ‘flow’ that would effectively convey the motion of water.

This next example demonstrates Beethoven’s ‘in score’ description within the movement as opposed to reserving his descriptions programmatically to the movement titles.

During the coda, Beethoven specifically indicates by text that the flute, oboe and clarinet become a nightingale, quail and cuckoo respectively:

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Critical Review


Each entry is staggered, showcasing the uniqueness of tone and character of each bird, especially the cuckoo’s distinct major 3rd motif.

The third movement is called ‘Happy gathering of villagers’. It opens with a lively Allegro tempo and a merrymaking peasants’ dance compliments the typical symphonic 3rd movement form of a Minuet & Trio or Scherzo.

We get a time and key signature change at bar 165 and Beethoven gives us more of a square dance feel, with a suitably simple harmony of I, IV & V. This, combined with quick rhythms, short sustained chords, frequent sforzandi and syncopated sections, I felt Beethoven was not only moving us through the raucous jubilation of the villagers but also introducing some tension and gradually changing the atmosphere…the calm before the storm:

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Critical Review

Beethoven’s ‘Pastoral’ Symphony, 3rd Mvmt - bars 165-167

Vivaldi tried to capture the energy and emotion of violent weather in ‘Spring’, and as I anticipated in this change of feeling within movement 3, so did Beethoven. His 4 th movement is called ‘Thunderstorm’, and he reveals to us an underlying sense of man’s fear of this storm with an opening tremolo in bar one; the tension is palpable:

Beethoven’s ‘Pastoral’ Symphony, 4th Mvmt - bars 1-2

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Critical ReviewAt bar 136, the cellos and double-bass announce the storm’s final arrival with further tremolos and very low 3-note, turn-style semiquaver motifs which are dark and oppressing:


Further impressions of the turbulent weather are scattered throughout the movement, many appearing before the storm sets in.

The scalic staccato figure in the 2nd violins in bar 3 are reminiscent of raindrops:


The introduction of timpani in bar 21 could be likened to thunder:


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Critical Review Short arpeggiated ascending figures in the 1st violins in bar 33 could be suggesting a lightening flash:


And in general terms, Beethoven’s use of dynamic range, from pp to ff, sometimes abruptly, indicates his desire to harness within the orchestra’s power the rise, swell and fall of an unpredictable passage of weather.

When the storm has passed, we hear the flutes heralding the sunshine – and a seamless traverse into Movement 5:


This last additional movement is unusual because the conventional symphonic ‘form’ comprises of 4 movements, not 5, and with this extra one, Beethoven returns us to the sonata form he utilised in his opening movement, but this time with rondo elements.

Entitled ‘Shepherds Song. Grateful thanks to the Almighty after the Storm’, we know in very literal terms that Beethoven wants us to experience the relief of a storm having passed.

He returns us to the key of F major and keeps the texture rich and thick, starting the movement with a pedal chord in the violas, followed by the cellos, which sound like a drone:

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Critical Review


There is a real sense of contentment and happiness here, a feeling that all living creatures come back to enjoy the countryside once more, with bird call in the violas trills in bars 36 and 37:


Beethoven maintains a busy, full texture throughout this last movement, demonstrating the resilience of both nature and man after such troublesome weather and one truly senses the relief that warmth and sunshine has returned to the land once more.

From this analysis, both Vivaldi and Beethoven achieved their own interpretations of programme music through two very different pieces. Adam Bruce describes programme music as being ‘roughly defined as a composition which reflects a story, event, or series of events within its music.’8

8 Adam Bruce, The Rise of Programmatic Music (2008) (www.classicalforums.com), 1

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Critical Review Both Vivaldi and Beethoven tell a story; whether based upon sonnets or observational notes made in the countryside is irrelevant. These two pieces represent musical interpretations of extra-musical concerns, and they attempt to describe to the listener different seasons, activities or moments in the country.

My analysis of these two pieces leads me to conclude, therefore, that they are indeed examples of programme music because despite being written in two different musical periods, the underlying motives were the same; they both wanted to convey something with extra musical meaning.

Vivaldi employed instrumental technique to suggest birdcall. He used contrasting note ranges and rhythms to show us a thunderstorm. Delicate, decorative triplets danced on the air like light breezes, whilst uncertain melodies staggered around in a drunken stupor. Whilst he may not have commanded as many instruments as Beethoven in his concertos, Vivaldi was imaginative enough to capture these moments remarkably well, both descriptively and emotionally.

Beethoven’s love of the countryside is well documented, and his sketchbooks that accompanied the development of his 6th symphony evidence the time and attention he employed in his countryside endeavours.

It is true and fair to observe that Beethoven had a much broader palette of instruments to work with, and set his piece within a larger scale work, the symphony. Vivaldi’s concertos were an opportunity to showcase the virtuosity of the violin, as well as his command of composition, and his pieces in comparison seem more intimate than Beethoven’s.

That said, Beethoven and Vivaldi shared the desire to musically describe similar, extra-musical themes; birdcall, thunderstorms, dancing revellers. In each of these two pieces, both composers demonstrate their ability to creatively interpret what would otherwise be left to poets or painters to describe.

This review has confirmed the reputation of Vivaldi and Beethoven as composers of programme music, and these two pieces are representative of the genre, with evidence herein to support my assertion.

By their very nature, these pieces have both captured emotion and told numerous stories along the way. They have described things with musical technique that wouldn’t ordinarily be found being depicted in a musical score, and they take the listener on an extra-musical journey. Programme music has been a fascinating world to discover, and I feel rightly proud that I have could write my own piece for this final year project.

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Critical ReviewReferences:

* Beethoven, L (2008). Symphony No. 6 in F Major, Op. 68 (“Pastoral”). United States: CCARH - Centre for Computer Aided Research in the Humanities. Entire score.

* Bruce A. (2008). The Rise of Programmatic Music. Available: http://www.classicalforums.com/articles/rise_of_programmatic_music.html. Last accessed 10/12/2016

* Cooke, D (1989). The Language of Music. 3rd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Entire book.* Everett, P (1996). Vivaldi The Four Seasons & Other Concertos, Op.8. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Entire book.

* Huscher, P. (Unknown). Progam Notes - Symphony No. 6 in F Major, Op. 68 (Pastoral). Available: http://cso.org/uploadedFiles/1_Tickets_and_Events/Program_Notes/061010_ProgramNotes_Beethoven_Symphony6.pdf. Last accessed 11/12/2015.

* Jones, D W (1995). Beethoven Pastoral Symphony. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Entire book.

* Ku, A. (Unknown). Programme Notes compiled by Anne Ku. Available: http://www.pianoguitar.com/notes/20060312.htm. Last accessed 23/04/2015.

* Munteanu, I. (2004-14). All About Beethoven. Available: http://www.all-about-beethoven.com/symphony6.html. Last accessed 12/12/2016

* Niecks, Frederick (2013). Programme Music In The Last Four Centuries; A Contribution To The History Of Musical Expression. United States: Hardpress Publishing. Entire book.

* Orrey, L (1975). Programme Music. Cambridge, UK: Davis-Poynter. Entire book.

* Unknown. (Unknown). Antonio Vivaldi The Four Seasons. Available: http://www.baroquemusic.org/vivaldiseasons.html. Last accessed 05/11/2015.

* Unknown. (Unknown). Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony (6th) A Love of Nature. Available: http://www.favorite-classical-composers.com/pastoral-symphony.html. Last accessed 17/04/2015.

* Unknown. (Unknown). Beethoven's 6th Symphony (Pastoral). Available: http://www.thetutorpages.com/tutor-article/classical-guitar/beethovens-6th-symphony-pastoral/1746. Last accessed 17/04/2015.

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Critical Review* Unknown. (2014). Program Music. Available: https://www.britannica.com/art/program-music. Last accessed 19 Sept' 2016

* Unknown. (2014). Teacher's Guide To Set Works. Available: http://www.cie.org.uk/images/173635-teachers-guide-to-prescribed-works-2016.pdf. Last accessed 20/10/2015.

* Unknown. (2003). What is Program Music? Available: http://www.wisegeek.org/what-is-program-music.htm. Last accessed 08/04/2015

* Unknown. (Unknown). What is Baroque Music? Available: http://baroque-music.com. Last accessed 09/12/2016.

* Unknown. (Unknown). Romantic Music - A Beginner's Guide. Available: http://www.classicfm.com/discover/periods/romantic/romantic-music-beginners-guide/. Last accessed 10/12/2016

* Vivaldi, A (1950). Concerto in Mi Maggiore. Italy: G. Ricordi & C. Editori. Entire Score

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