In but few instances has Beethoven vouchsafed any explanation of his musical intent, and then it seems to have been done reluctantly.  It was hardly necessary in the case of the Pastoral Symphony as it is comparatively easy of comprehension.  The title gives the clew; the occasional bird notes of quail, cuckoo and lark, the scene at the brook, could hardly be mistaken; while the dance-music in Part III, as well as the storm with its forebodings of terror, convey their meaning plainly to the average intelligence.  This poem of nature is always enjoyable, refreshing the mind, and resting the jaded faculties, much as a trip to the country helps us physically.

The explanations as Beethoven appended them are as follows: 

No.  I. Allegro:  The awakening of cheerful feelings on arriving in the country.

No.  II.  Andante:  Scene at the Brook.

No.  III.  Allegro:  Merry meeting of country folk.

No.  IV.  Allegro:  Thunder-storm.

No.  V. Allegretto:  Song of the Shepherds, and glad and thankful feelings after the storm.

Many great composers before and after Beethoven have essayed this portrayal of a storm, Haendel, Haydn (Seasons), Glueck, Mozart, Rossini (William Tell overture), Chopin, Wagner (Flying Dutchman), are a few instances.

The Pastoral Symphony has been dramatized so to speak, that is, it has been put on the stage, the different situations of this nature-poem having been portrayed by living and moving tableaux, pantomimic action and ballet; there was scenery, and the dance of the peasants and the thunder-storm were, no doubt, realistic enough.  This representation took place at a festival of the Kuenstler Liedertafel of Duesseldorf in 1863, also in London.

CHAPTER VIII

MEETING WITH GOETHE

Eine schoene Menschenseele finden ist Gewinn. 
—­HERDER.

Beethoven did not have the faculty of teaching except in rare instances.  It is not in the nature of things that such a man would consider teaching in any other light than drudgery, and would feel that time so spent could have been much better employed in composition.  This was the case already in Bonn, when he had no income and before his creative talent had shown itself.  He was only too glad to abandon it as soon as proper encouragement for composition came to him from his publishers.  Here and there an attractive lady would be able to cajole him into giving a few lessons on the pianoforte—­the Brunswick sisters and Madame Ertmann are instances, but they were intermittent in character, and did not continue long.  Two prominent exceptions, however, were the Archduke Rudolph and Ferdinand Ries.  True, Czerny was a pupil also, but the lessons did not continue long, as was the case with the Archduke and Ries.

Beethoven’s acquaintance with the Archduke began in the winter of 1804.  Rudolph, then sixteen years of age, seems to have attached himself to Beethoven, then thirty-four, more as a friend than as a pupil.  Other masters could have been found under whom he would have advanced more rapidly, and it is quite likely that the Imperial family would have preferred some other than Beethoven, whose republican principles must have made him disliked by them.