Beethoven: Symphonies Nos 4 & 6 'Pastoral'

'Two fundamentally different symphonies: both works explore feelings from an entirely different point of view. The Fourth is about human feelings and moods: obsession, love (what a melody in the second movement!), happiness, fun, wit, (Beethoven's most humorous finale!). The Sixth is about feelings that nature awakens in us: calmness, meditation, thankfulness. It has been an especially creative process to work on these masterpieces. We discovered that the Fourth Symphony sounds better with natural horns and trumpets. In the Pastorale we used a different seating arrangement, with the winds scattered among the strings, so that each soloist was surrounded by musicians playing the flow of Beethoven's nature music. After the storm, when we hear the first tentative call of the clarinet, answered by the horn from a different mountain, as it were, we found it appropriate to use a solo violin, which is gradually joined by the whole orchestra.' Iván Fischer