Why I hate Beethoven’s Pastoral symphony

I loved music before I could walk. It seemed I could harmonise anything my sisters were singing. I had perfect pitch, a mixed blessing since wrong notes made me cry.

I hated music when I first heard Beethoven’s Pastoral symphony. 

I was nine years old. My mother had died when I was two and my father got remarried to a Hitler refugee, half unhinged by exile. My stepmother took me to orchestral concerts at the Royal Festival Hall. She liked all the crowd pleasers, best of all the Pastoral symphony which she played at home on a portable gramophone. I grew to revile the opening rustle of strings, the ‘Awakening of cheerful feelings on arrival in the countryside.’ 

That never worked for me. I’m not sure now whether Beethoven meant it either. Considered in the totality of Beethoven’s output, the Pastoral is a cuckoo in his catalogue. Had it never been written, our view of him would not change.