A remark of Ries, confirmed by other testimony, as well as by the form and substance of many of his master’s works, if already quoted, will bear repetition: “Beethoven in composing his pieces often thought of a particular thing, although he frequently laughed at musical paintings and scolded particularly about trivialities of this sort. Haydn’s ‘Creation’ and ‘The Seasons’ were frequently ridiculed, though Beethoven never failed to recognize Haydn’s high deserts,” etc. But Beethoven himself did not disdain occasionally to introduce imitations into his works. The difference between him and others in this regard was this: they undertook to give musical imitations of things essentially unmusical--he never. On a bright, sunny day in April, 1823, Beethoven took Schindler for a long ramble through the scenes in which he had composed his Fifth and Sixth symphonies. Schindler writes: After we had looked at the bath-house and its adjacent garden at Heiligenstadt and he had given expression to many agreeable recollections touching his creations, we continued our walk towards the Kahlenberg in the direction past Grinzing [?]. Passing through the pleasant meadow-valley between Heiligenstadt and the latter village,[59] which is traversed by a gently murmuring brook which hurries down from a near-by mountain and is bordered with high elms, Beethoven repeatedly stopped and let his glances roam, full of happiness, over the glorious landscape. Then seating himself on the turf and leaning against an elm, Beethoven asked me if there were any yellowhammers to be heard in the trees around us. But all was still. He then said: “Here I composed the ‘Scene by the Brook’ and the yellowhammers up there, the quails, nightingales and cuckoos round about, composed with me.” To my question why he had not also put the yellowhammers into the scene, he drew out his sketchbook and wrote: [Illustration] “That’s the composer up there,” he remarked, “hasn’t she a more important rôle to play than the others? ~They~ are meant only for a joke.” And really the entrance of this figure in G major gives the tone-picture a new charm. Speaking now of the whole work and its parts, Beethoven said that the melody of this variation from the species of the yellowhammers was pretty plainly imitated in the scale written down in Andante rhythm and the same pitch.[60] As a reason for not having mentioned this fellow-composer he said that had he printed the name it would only have served to increase the number of ill-natured interpretations of the movement which has made the introduction of the work difficult not only in Vienna but also in other places. Not infrequently the symphony, because of its second movement, had been declared to be child’s play. In some places it shared the fate of the “Eroica.” [Sidenote: JOKES IN THE “PASTORAL SYMPHONY”]