Nature’s Wonders: Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony
Stephanie Ann Boyd: Carnival of the Nearly Extinct Animals
Composer: born Ann Arbor, MI 1990
Work composed: 2024-25
World premiere: October 11 & 12, 2025, by the Bozeman Symphony
Instrumentation: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, 2 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp, and strings
Estimated duration: 25 minutes
Stephanie Ann Boyd writes melodic music about women’s memoirs and the natural world for symphonic and chamber ensembles. Her work has been performed in nearly all 50 states and has been commissioned by musicians and organizations in 37 countries. Boyd’s five ballets include works choreographed by New York City Ballet principal dancers Lauren Lovette and Ashley Bouder and include a ballet commissioned for the grand opening of the TWA Hotel at JFK Airport. Boyd’s music has earned praise from multiple sources: “a racing, brassy score” (New York Times); “attractive lyricism,” (Gramophone); “[with] ethereal dissonances” (Boston Globe); “[music that] didn’t let itself be eclipsed” (Texas Classical Review).
Boyd first conceived the idea of her Carnival, which is inspired by and modeled on Camille Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals, in 2021. “I was locked in my apartment because of COVID,” she remembers, “and the idea just came to me, but I thought, ‘Isn’t this low-hanging fruit? How is it no one has done this before?’” Two years later, Boyd revisited the idea again, and began assembling a group of orchestras and other organizations to co-commission the work.
Like Saint-Saëns’ Carnival, Boyd’s work has 14 movements, 13 focused on a different endangered species, plus a finale. Some of the animals, such as the American bison and the gray wolf, are generally well known, while others, such as the ivory-billed woodpecker and the kahuli snail, are less familiar to audiences. At times the music evokes the sounds of the animals directly; in other movements, Boyd wants to “bring the audience into the environment, like the icy lonesome space of the polar bear.”
Boyd, a former violinist, describes herself as a “melodist,” and her work reflects the foundational importance of melody in her music. She expects her Carnival to go even deeper into melodic explorations, many of which are an outgrowth of her synesthesia. Synesthesia, a neurological phenomenon in which the experience of one sense, like hearing, triggers involuntary associations with other senses, like sight. People with synesthesia can, for example, smell music or taste color. The most common form of synesthesia occurs when people see particular colors when they hear specific notes or harmonies. “I’m pretty sure I’ve only published one dominant seventh [chord] intentionally,” says Boyd. “They’re an icky green and orange color I really don’t like.”
A piece of music dedicated to endangered species could suggest feelings of despair or sadness regarding the planet’s dire environmental crises, but Boyd decided early on to focus on gratitude. “I want to help people absolutely fall in love with all these animals,” she says, “As they listen, I want them to get goosebumps, and maybe even shed a few tears. And I want them to leave the hall with a smile on their face.”
Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 6 in F major, Op.68, “Pastoral”
Composer: born December 16, 1770, Bonn; died March 26, 1827, Vienna
Work composed: 1803-08. Dedicated to Beethoven’s patrons, Prince Joseph Lobkowitz and Count Andrey Razumovsky.
World premiere: Beethoven conducted the Sixth Symphony in Vienna on December 22, 1808, as part of a four-hour all-Beethoven benefit concert
Instrumentation: piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, 2 trombones, timpani, and strings
Estimated duration: 37 minutes
“All tone painting in instrumental music loses its value if pushed too far.” – Ludwig van Beethoven
The popularity of “program” or “characteristic” music – instrumental works based on non-musical subjects with accompanying narratives – reached its zenith in the late 1700s to early 1800s. Many characteristic pieces, which featured descriptions of nature, ocean voyages, hunting expeditions, weather (particularly storms), and military battles were of slight musical value, little more than musical bon-bons designed to delight audiences. Some stretched the bounds of musical taste, like military scenes complete with flying bullets and the groans of wounded soldiers. As such music became more fashionable, critics extolled what came to be known as “absolute” music, compositions conceived without extra-musical ideas or inspirations.
Beethoven was very familiar with characteristic pieces, particularly Justin Heinrich Knecht’s 1785 Portrait musical de la nature, which, like Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony, has five movements featuring a country landscape and a storm. Beethoven, however, exercised great caution when composing his own characteristic music. In the Pastoral Symphony, Beethoven combined programmatic elements (e.g., birdcalls) with the feelings nature evoked in him. To clarify his intentions, Beethoven noted in the score, “The whole will be understood even without a description, as it is more feeling than tone-painting.”
Beethoven gave each of the five movements a title. Of particular note is the Szene am Bach (Scene by the Brook), in which the strings’ rocking triplet rhythm perfectly captures the brook’s lazy meanderings. This movement also features specific bird imitations carefully notated by Beethoven in the score: nightingale (flute), quail (oboe), and cuckoo (two clarinets).
In the final three movements, which Beethoven indicated should be played without pause, peasants dance to a rousing folk tune. The short Allegro Gweitter, Sturm (Thunderstorm), the only movement in a minor key, depicts the fury of a summer squall. The closing Hirtengesang: Frohe und dankbare Gefühle nach dem Sturm (Shepherd’s song. Happy and grateful feelings after the storm) begins with a chorale phrase, an indication of Beethoven’s spiritual inclinations. In the score, Beethoven wrote, “Herr, wir danken dir” (Lord, we thank thee).
Despite less-than auspicious circumstances at the Sixth Symphony’s premiere (a four-hour program, under-rehearsed orchestra and spottily heated concert hall), both audiences and critics responded favorably. One review described the storm as “unsurpassedly beautiful,” while Beethoven himself noted, in a letter to his publisher, “In spite of the fact that various mistakes were made, which I could not prevent, the public nevertheless applauded the whole performance with enthusiasm.”
© Elizabeth Schwartz