Okay, he started writing it in 1805, continuing on it all the way through to 1808, where he then got stuck. So he went ahead and wrote another Symphony. As one does. If you're Neil Young, that is.
And why not? He'd been writing all sorts of stuff over the last few years so what's another symphony? In fact, it helped him work out the problem he was having with the Fifth, so he finished that one, too.
In case you don't already know, this is the one that starts with dah dah dah dah!
The first thing I had to learn about this was that it wasn't dah-dah-dah! and it wasn't dah-dah-dah-dah!. It was deh-DAH-deh-DAH, and even that's a pretty shaky description of it.
But my point is, it wasn't an announcement of "serious intent" as I've always thought. It was an off-kilter, "on the two", attempt to tell everyone not only has the show started but you're already behind so hurry up. It was intensity. It was - if I may use an overused analogy - punk rock. It's Neil Young inspired by the Sex Pistols doing "Sedan Delivery" for forty minutes. It's Elvis Costello upping his game after his comparatively singer-songwriterly My Aim is True to This Year's Model.
Of course, this could just be him further adjusting to his worsening deafness and abandoning nuance for impact. Who could blame him?
In a way, it's funny because LVB usually comes at you with all kinds of melodic motifs that glide and flow into each other like, say Sufjan Stevens, but here he's more or less just hammering away on a single riff, like ACDC. I mean, he's messing with it, but he keeps coming back to it.
He turns back into Haydn for the second movement if only to assure you he hasn't lost his mind completely. (Funny how he always feels the need to do that...) But then halfway through it's very Napoleonic for a minute as if the two were friends again. Nappy would soon have Vienna surrounded, so it was no time to piss him off.
It seems like it's going to take the mellow route, like a CSNY acoustic set but then the horns come in loud and martial. The woodwinds and violins try to calm them down, but the brass isn't having it. So the tone sways gently back and forth between the two.
The third movement takes that martial theme and combines it with the Dah-Dah-Dah-Dah (well, you know what I mean). The violins are getting fidgety and keeping the pot on a steady simmer, which is a nice setup for the finale when everyone's caffeine kicks in. Kids, that's why Kiss did "Beth" - the better to rock your ass when the time came.
And it's kitchen sink time! In its own way, like "Rosalita" after "Incident on 57th Street". It starts off with a bang and for ten minutes he hits you with everything, one after the other. He really bashes at you to within an inch of your life.
And like "Rosalita", it pauses halfway through if only to catch his breath and pummel away again. And for the last minute, in double time, as if the horses are charging.
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And here's Lenny - with the beard, looking suspiciously like Kevin Kline - (I just miss the messy hair) to demonstrate.
The Sixth Symphony:
He calls it "Pastoral", which is what you do when you've forgotten your electric guitar, or went completely overboard last time out. Here it's the difference between the second and third Velvet Underground records or Comes a Time after riding in the ditch for years.
But on a more serious note, I suspect he got laid. And good for him! And us. After all, as great as the Fifth was, how much of that can you take at one time? Well...
This is his first five-parter - with two Allegros! (wow!) - which is bullshit because when you listen to it, it all flows together but maybe he was getting paid by the movement. (There is a scatological joke here that I'll leave for you to work out. I have a reputation to maintain.)
The first movement has some very familiar themes that most would recognize. (But of course don't count on me to say "Ahh, Beethoven's Sixth!".) About three minutes in, it sounds like there's a man on a trapeze. It might be the sweetest piece he's ever done. Trapeze man comes back in at about eight minutes in and, thankfully, lands gracefully.
Then in the second movement, he decides to take a stroll and look around. He takes his time and manages to sustain this mellow mood for twelve minutes!
The third movement starts off with some themes most of us cultivated folks would recognize, starting off easy but then ending up at the horse races.
The fourth starts out like Phantom of the Opera (or do I mean that Phantom sounds like this...) except there is some actual drama, and then sounds like Muggsorgsky's/ELP's Picture's at an Exhibition before calming down and being its own self.
And three minutes into the fifth he hits on a theme/chord progression that works universally. And here is where he shocks me. I'm expecting the old gallop to the finale ending, when in fact he stays within the boundaries he set at the beginning, and ends with mellow.
My conclusion is that he's high, in the best possible way. If the fifth was bourbon, this one is weed.
And it's a full forty minutes, so we're in Thick As A Brick territory.
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Here's Lenny again, this time sans beard but with the messy hair, showing how it's done.
The Vienna Concert:
You'd think after cranking out two symphonies he'd relax a bit, but no!
So he ends the year with a concert premiering both of these Symphonies, and then plays lead on his Fourth Piano Concerto No. 4 and, for good measure, a Choral Fantasia (we all know how those are).
All in all, a four-hour show. Very Sprinsteenian/Allmans-at-Fillmore of him.
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