The warmest and perhaps the most beloved of all Beethoven’s nine symphonies, the so-called ‘Pastoral’ is a festival of enchantment from beginning to end. Though pictorial in many of its images and in the titles given to each movement, Beethoven stressed that the symphony was “more an expression of feelings than a painting”. The feelings it arouses in the listener are of continuous joy and wonder, but the craft behind them is hardly less wonderful. Here we explore the piece from the inside out, discovering just how this magnificent musical oak grows from the tiniest of acorns and encountering in the process one of the greatest magicians in musical history.

A series exploring, in words and music, the major classical works of the concert hall. In an accessible and lively manner, Jeremy Siepmann looks at the history and the form of the great masterpieces of western music.