Beethoven, Spring and Nature
Convivium, 26 March 2020
As spring has sprung, the Kingston Symphony’s melded-together performance of two vastly different compositions show that while man and nature often collide, God’s creation is still a garden.
It’s springtime. Let the crocuses – but not the viruses – bloom. And if it is not possible to get outdoors to enjoy the spring in this coronavirus season, why not listen to it? I did just that six weeks ago, courtesy of the Kingston Symphony.
The vernal equinox fell last week, a bit earlier than usual. So it’s officially spring and Canada awakens from its long winter dormancy to delight again in the splendour of the land. Or we would be doing so if our pandemic precautions did not mimic the rites of hibernation.
The Kingston Symphony performed Rite of Spring, a ballet and orchestral concert work by Russian composer Igor Stravinsky, thought by some to be one of the most important compositions of the 20th century. It was performed in the same concert along with Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony, the “pastoral” symphony. That’s “pastoral” as in the fields where shepherds work, not “pastoral” as in the work of shepherding the flock. The Sixth is about nature, not grace – at least not principally.
As 2020 is the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth, many orchestras are featuring his works. Kingston is performing all nine of his symphonies.
It was an inspired decision by Evan Mitchell, conductor of the Kingston Symphony, to put the Rite and the Sixth together. They present us with two very different ways to behold nature. Stravinsky gives us the power of nature, full of fearsome forces that threaten us. It is the pagan world that seeks to placate the divinized elements of nature – the ancient Roman sacrifices to their pantheon, or the great Aztec civilization in the new world offering human sacrifices to the sun god.
Beethoven, despite a life of less than devout religious practice, composed from within an at least nominal Christian faith, and certainly for a Christian culture. He composed the Missa Solemnis after all, because all great composers of that time composed Masses. His “pastoral” symphony thus delights in nature. Christians do not regard nature as a fearful thing, hostile to man. It is a created thing, in which man can be at home and take joy in it. Mitchell calls the Sixth a “love letter to the outdoors.”
“Where Beethoven cherishes the beauty in nature, [Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring] reacts in fearful, reverent awe of its brute force, its remarkable and casual indifference,” writes Mitchell of his decision to put the two pieces together. “Even though the Rite was written in 1913, it remained the most important piece of the 20th century.”
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