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Symphony no.6: 2nd movement (Andante molto mosso)
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Form scheme
2nd movement |
"Scene by the brook" is Beethoven’s heading for this movement.
It has to be understood as a musical experience of nature.
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bars 1-13
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Beethoven leads the listener along the Schreiberbach; the 12/8 time with its trills renders the ripples of the gentle brook, the main theme is enriched with many tiny figures, the song of the birds is realised in a birds’ voices cadenza: a picture of peace, joy, undisturbed delight in nature is unrolled - the peace of nature is turned into sound.
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33-37
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No change of mood occurs, even when the secondary theme is introduced in the bassoon and in the following bar in the violas and celli.
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49-71
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The mood intensifies in the development, the main theme recurs, regular sixteenth-notes weaving around so as to render man’s mood on hearing the whispering of treetops, the murmuring of a brook and other stirring sounds in nature. Time and space seem to have dissolved.
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129-139
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At the end of the movement we can hear the birds’ voices cadenza, nightingale (= flute), quail (= oboe) and cuckoo (= clarinet) chirp their songs before the music fades away in pianissimo.
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