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Arts feature

Why I hate Beethoven’s Pastoral symphony

Norman Lebrecht on his hatred of Beethoven’s Pastoral

18 January 2023

10:00 PM

18 January 2023

10:00 PM

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.

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