The Notorious LVB: 1809-27

1809 - 1811: Me and LVB Take a Break From Each Other, Part One:

We last left off in 1808, and since all I've got left in my collection are the remaining symphonies - which don't pick up again until 1812 - I'd hate for you to think LVB or the world are taking it easy. So here are some chronologies to pore over: one for him and one for us.

But if you can't be bothered, I'll sum it up below:

1809: 

Us: Oh, not much. War is declared against France, so the French army invades Vienna

Him: Teaches music to Archduke Rudolphe and composes a string quartet, a few piano sonatas,  and a bunch of songs for various luminaries.

1810:

Us: France (thanks Napolean!) continues to invade everyone and their moms. The Germans respond by declaring the first-ever Octoberfest. (All agree they should have just stopped right there for the next two hundred years.)

Him: Presents 'The Letter for Elise' to Thérèse Malfatti, for whom he's got the hots. Having addressed his frontal area, he moves on to covering his posterior by continuing to writing tunes for big shots. 

1811:

Us: The King of England goes mad.

Him: He begins writing the seventh symphony

1812: The Seventh Symphony

So while the rest of the world is blowing up, LVB is writing another symphony. This time, he's back to four movements, probably because he realized that having five parts last time was a real a*hole move, even for him.

The first movement starts off with a Blam! I love the opening chord progression. Maybe it appeals to the plebes like me too much but that's okay. LVB's a plebe at heart. Just one who reached for the stars. 

Then two minutes in he's about to up the ante but then pulls back. Sly dog. But he's only setting us up because at five minutes he comes at us even stronger. And he keeps up the bobbing and weaving and boppity-bop rhythm for nine more minutes! Pastoral Schmastoral! LVB's back, baby!  

Is the second movement a funeral march? Not quite - it's got sort of a "Climb Every Mountain" vibe, but with horns instead of nuns - a switch that would have dramatically improved my childhood. 

In the third LVB cheers up, picks up the pace, and adds a rather snappy rhythm. 

In the fourth, he takes it up another notch but keeps things from getting too crazy. He must be on his meds. Ah, but then towards the end they wear off and he's his old crazy self as if to say it's the summer of Ludvig!! 

He conducts it the following year to celebrate the Brits kicking Nappy's ass.

A

"Lenny Number Seven"

1813: The Eighth Symphony:

Having proved he was no sissy last time, he's a little less of a dick now, but still thrashing when necessary. 

In the first movement, he tries to sound "stately" as if he owns a thousand acres, which he kind of does by now. But it still moves. 

The second is short and mellow. I can see putting this on for dinner guests.

The third gets regal, like he thinks he's the king. He was smart enough to not tell the actual king,  though.

The four is customarily fast - the typical Beethoven charge at the gates - nice but nothing amazing. 

And before you know it, it's over.  It's his shortest.  All in all, it feels like this one is made up of the parts that didn't make the last symphony. 

B+

"Lenny Number Eight"

1814 - 1823: Me and LVB Take a Break From Each Other, Part Two:

Then the man drops out for a while, taking a break from Symphonies and lots of other things.

Was it a Clapton break, involving substance abuse followed by long years of mediocre music? Nah. More like a Dylan motorcycle accident break where he (eventually) does the basement tapes once he gets better. 

But what was going on? Oh, let's see: his brother dies, he gets into a custody battle over his nephew and becomes very ill.

By 1820 he's finally composing more, including three piano sonatas, and he's already started on the Ninth Symphony.

1824: The Ninth Symphony 

He just HAD to go back to five movements.  Not only that, each one is loooooonnnnng. The whole thing runs about SIXTY-FIVE Minutes - at least half again as long as anything before it. 

We're in double album territory. Not The Beatles, mind you, which was over 90 minutes long. More like London Calling or Exile on Main Street. You know - double albums that come up a bit short time-wise but are great nonetheless. (Speaking of London Calling, what if LVB - instead of having that 5th movement - just had a hidden track at the end?)

And speaking of the Stones, do you find it as odd as I do that he finishes this with a chorus, kind of like "You Can't Always Get What You Want"? Typical of the Stones to take something meant to be so positive and shitting all over it just before heading on out to Altamont.

Two seconds in and it already feels bigger! (now, there's a sentence I never expected to write...) It moves - rhythmically, melodically, and dynamically - all over the place, and yet it holds together. It reminds me of "Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding" in the sense that it takes its time to make its point and expects you to sit there and wait.

It's like listening to a drunk guy in a bar who you think might take a slug at you. He's had a tough life and he's got to take it out on somebody.

The second movement opens with a theme everyone would recognize. Again the insistent rhythm, and, as usual, the rhythm and melody match perfectly. The drunk is angry and might strike out at any moment. By the end of it, I feel like I've done a few rounds with Ali. Float float float float float STING!! You get the idea. 

You finally get to rest in the third movement. The drunk has calmed down and LVB is taking his time. And after years of personal turmoil, he's got a lot to say. Who? Both of them.

The fourth grabs you again. You thought he'd mellowed out, didn't ya? No, he's still drunk and still knocking shit over. And still upset. But then he finally hits that happy stage and loves the world. 

And in the fifth, not only has he started singing, he wants the whole bar to sing with him, too. And they do!

I've gotta admit the singers are really wailing by the end of this one. And the orchestra keeps up with them. The ending combines the orchestral and vocal into what must have been an overwhelming climax. But that's also how I feel about "You Can't Always Get What You Want" which I'll admit I still prefer. 

He conducted it at the premiere, even though he was totally deaf.  When it was over, one of the singers had to turn him around so that he could at least see the audience going nuts.

And well, there it is. One of the "great albums" - snob that I am - that I never quite got comfortable with. I guess I liked his early stuff better before he became a big star and everyone else liked him.

But it's really really good.

"Lenny Number Nine, Number Nine, Number Nine..."

A-

1825 - 27: "...the love you take/make, etc..."

He continues to compose, even starting a tenth symphony. But he's getting ill again and family issues are taking their toll. 

When he passes away the funeral attracts 30,000, and among the pallbearers was that suck-up Franz Schubert. (We'll get to him eventually.)

So after all of this, I must REALLY LOVE Beethoven, right? Not exactly. 

I still a fan of rock 'n roll and pop music. I dip into classical music like I dip into reggae or the blues. I need a change, stay for a while and then go home.

I still love the Beatles, the Stones, and the Who more than any of the Big Three Bs of Classical Music - Beethoven, Bach, Mozart.  Why Mozart you say? 'cuz he's such a little Bitch.

Jk, it's really because it's Brahms, and despite having his Requiem, I can't say I'm up to him yet. (Remember the Jaybee motto: don't let facts/reality stand in the way.)

So I hope this exercise hasn't been a complete waste of time for you. I'm glad I did it because it forced me to listen to it all more closely, and I'm really glad I did.

So rock/pop will always be first, but if someone puts on any of the LVB music I've covered here, I'm going to really enjoy it.

Anyway, let's finish with this small piece you might know as "Schroder's Theme".  

RIP LVB.

The Notorious LVB: 1808

The Fifth Symphony:

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. 

And. It's. Just. Great.

A

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.

A-

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.

The Notorious LVB 1806-07

So what's the old charmer been up to these days, you ask? In 1806, his brother, of street fighting fame, gets married, so LVB would have to find someone else to wrestle with. Instead, he writes his Fourth Symphony and a Violin Concerto because that's what one does. In 1807 he had the hots for a young widow who turned him down. So he finishes writing his Fifth Symphony. (But that'll have to wait until next time.) Wow. All that redirected sexual energy!

Violin Concerto  1806

When I got all nine of Beethoven’s Symphonies from MHS, they threw in a bonus record. And damn if it didn't work its way into my brain and end up being my favorite bit of classical music!

 

I guess when I was feeling daunted by the sheer amount of music in the Symphonies, I’d put this one, feeling I'd at least be accomplishing something, and, by golly, it snuck up on me.

This is a really lovely album.

And now that I've (accidentally) gotten a CD version of it, I've become the Classical Music Asshole I always hated. You know who I mean. I can now say something like I prefer the 1991 Itszhak Perlman-Carlo Maria Guilini version with the Philharmonic Orchestra to the 1981 Christian Ferras-Herbert von Karajan version with the Berliner Philharmoniker due to some esoteric reason when we both know my fave was the video version because the (Irish?) violinist sweat his ass off.

So let me tell you about it.

Well, in typical classical music "let's piss off the plebes" fashion it goes on for three and a half minutes before any violins show up. Or, at least becomes prominent. Lesson: soloists are always late, so always invite them earlier than everyone else.

The first movement is by far the longest - twenty-four minutes! - single movement of anything I have by LVB. By the time it's done you're like, hey that was great! and then you realize there are two more movements!

The second movement is a bit calmer and there's a nice mellow chord progression at around 3:45 that would be at home in any mellow-bluesy rock n' roll song. Speaking of which the whole thing clocks in at about 44 minutes, a very respectable mid-70s album length and the longest piece so far.

The third movement picks things up a bit and ties it all together in a very graceful energetic way.

So why do I like it? Well, it comes down to this. The violin sounds like an electric guitar. Not exactly in actual sound, and not exactly in what is being played. But in the verve and passion of it all.

There's even a degree of improvisation here but I'll be damned if I can figure out where it is. Suffice to say there are what appear to be "fills" along with the written down parts, and in its own classical way, it rocks. And that's Beethoven for you right there.

When I look for a video with Itzhak Perlman I'm irritated to see him sitting. I get it, he's wearing classy duds and - like the Winchester family, doesn't sweat/perspire. The video below is more rocking, with Ms. Hahn swaying like a guitar god. The audience reaction is pure rock n' roll, too, and completely appropriate.

My point is there's energy and passion here I can fully relate to. 

Funny thing, at its first public performance the public turned up its nose, and it took another dozen years for someone to dust it off and try it again - by a twelve-year-old violinist! It took someone at a rock n roll age to bring all that energy out. At which point everyone said you see I told you it was great (see the Hitler/Ramones Syndrome).  

Even better than my other fave, Vivaldi's Mandolin Concerto.

A

BEETHOVEN Concerto for Violin and Orchestra - Hilary Hahn, violin; Leonard Slatkin, conductor

Fourth Symphony:

As I mentioned before, the general rule for the Symphonies is to go for the odd-numbered ones, and this is a good illustration of that.

Number Three changed the ((classical (music)) world so the next one was bound to be a bit of a letdown. But then you're run into the people who go on to say that well, this is one of the most underrated blah blah blah. You get the idea.

And, alas, here, the paradigm holds up. Harvest Moon after  Ragged Glory? Not quality-wise, but definitely mood-wise.

He’s back to his opening Dah-Dah!-themed approach. But you can tell his heart's not fully in it. After having blown everything up, he’s taking a bit of a break. Wouldn't you?

After the bounce and hop of the last one, this one is almost comical that it takes over two minutes before it really kicks off. But then watch out! He's still Beethoven, after all.

The third movement may sound very familiar, and it's where things pick up.

And just when you think, man this guy just loves his fast endings, he pauses. And then blasts past you and it's over! 4th And okay he catches you in the 4th movement with the trick ending but let's face it, it's more cute than climactic. End of Sailin Shoes? No, the end of Abbey Road.

Verdict: Quite good, but not revolutionary. Perfectly fine for anyone else, but slightly subpar for the mad (not really) genius (yes really) that he is.

B+

But if anyone can perk things up, it's Lenny:

Beethoven: Symphony No. 4 in B flat major, Op. 60 (Leonard Bernstein)

The Notorious LVB 1804-1805

A Little Background Music:

If you want to get technical, we really have to start in 1802, with what is known as Beethoven's "Heiligenstadt Testament":

"Oh, you men, who think or say that I am evil or misanthropic how immensely you wrong me. You do not know the secret reason... For six years now I have been horribly afflicted... Ah how could I possibly admit a weakness in the one sense which ought to be more perfect in me than in others? A sense which I once possessed in the greatest perfection? Oh, I cannot do it; so forgive me when you see me retreat when I would have gladly spoken with you... I must live alone as if banished."

Well, someone needs a hug!

Seriously, I'm using this after the pandemic for people I plan to socially distance from permanently.  And the deafness part would not be a complete lie, either. 

And for all we know he could be talking about impotence or flatulence. (Yet yet another conspiracy theory!) 

But no, it's his loss of hearing. It's hitting LVB hard, so he's hitting back even harder, at least on his pianos, which he is literally destroying (hear that Jerry Lee, Leon, Elton?) after banging on them so hard to hear the notes. It's no surprise that he considered suicide. Luckily for all, he didn't go through with it, and instead buckled down and wrote his ass off, while, for all intents and purposes, he wore earplugs.

The Third Symphony:

Technically he started composing it back in 1803. But if you're going to single-handedly shove Classical music into the Romantic period it's gonna take a little while.

He had originally thought of naming it after Napoleon, who had been doing some pretty cool things up to that time. But in 1804, when Nappy named himself Emperor, Beethoven angrily rejected him with the immortal words "Well then, fuck that guy". He renamed it the Heroic Symphony, spelled Eroica, which I misread as Erotica, which shows where my mind was/is.

So it's not Napoleonic or Erotic, it's Heroic, which the woke young people tell me is secret code for Homo-erotic. But hey, so's the whole Western canon, and I think, football, right?

Anyway, he finally gets around to having it performed privately, but the public would have to wait a year. Reminds me of The Basement Tapes.

Or maybe Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival, because some people loved it and some hated it. And then years later everybody acknowledged it as a masterpiece and acted like they thought so all along. Like hating Hitler or loving the Ramones.

So how is it?

The first movement starts off with a Bang - On the One, as they say - followed by a mini-crescendo barely a minute in. He continues with all kinds of tricky stop-and-go rhythms, keeping it up for a few minutes,  taking the dare that he can keep this up. He really is the shit at this point.

And it never settles into one single theme. Lotsa little ones, though. (Side two of Abbey Road maybe? Or side one of Low.)

The second movement is the supposedly quiet Funeral March. (Wait, shouldn't that be at the end?) but it's really more pained and dramatic than sad. This is where I think LVB is really dedicating this to himself. To the death of his own hearing. Things wander a bit but not in a boring way. (The White Album?) It just goes its own way, with a slower pace (because funerals are usually upbeat Jaybee?). By the time things pick up, I've changed the volume about thirty times. Very ballsy to go for twelve minutes like this.  But it's gathering momentum.

The third movement takes it from there and clocks in at a relatively short five minutes. striking me as the most traditional-sounding part of this piece. 

The fourth does its level best to kick your ass. and largely succeeds because (gross generalization coming up) it's so much more dramatic and energetic than most classical music that came before. It even plays like movie music for a bit. As if you can really imagine it being used during a battle or chase scene. 

There’s definitely something new and different going on here. It’s like he knows exactly what he wants to do and doesn’t care if - but is sure you will - like it. The rules are out the window, along with his hearing.

One could say he's stretching out, finally becoming himself. Or that since he could no longer hear he had to work harder to make his point. (See those broken pianos above, I guess.) I've even read that LVB's deafness may have "freed" him from being distracted by the musical trends of his day, and thus enabled him to go his own way. As if he wasn't gonna do that in the first place! But I get it.

As shocking in its own way as Stravinsky's Rite of Spring would be a hundred years later, but with a friendlier reception. I guess people weren't such stupid fucking assholes back then. But then again, life's a lot simpler if you've got a bunch of servants or slaves doing all the hard stuff for you, isn't it? And there's no Karl Marx around yet to stir things up yet again (see Napolean). Ah, those were the days! And all those Stravinsky haters would get it out of their system with World War 1.

This one runs longer than the second (which itself was longer than the first). London Calling after Give 'Em Enough Rope?

But after all is said and done I like what I like because I like it, so I still give the edge to the First Symphony.

A-

This must have been pretty wild to see live. See for yourself:

"Beethoven's Third Symphony" with Lenny B conducting

The Notorious LVB: 1802 - 1803

It's 1802, and our friend Ludvig is getting grumpy. He even gets into a fistfight with his brother, who is also his business manager (it's always about the money isn't it?) and they take it to the street, rolling around in the mud. (I'm beginning to really like this guy.)

At least these guys had the class to keep in on the stage:

But then again these blokes not only involve another band but another continent, too.

So what's pissing off Ludvig van? Well, he's starting to realize he's going deaf. This is not you and me in our sixties just having to turn up the volume a bit more. This is a young genius with his whole future in music in doubt. It's understandable that he considers suicide.

The music he premiered in 1803 - mostly written the year before - represents the phase in his career before deafness took over.

Piano Concerto Number 3:

This one's more regal, more Beethovian, and overall less fun than numero uno. 

And the video agrees. Artur/Arthur has that high starched collar that says riff-raff need not apply. And even with us (I assume you're riff-raff, too...) not being in the room Artur/Arthur doesn't seem to be having ANY FUN AT ALL. You wouldn't either if you weren't sure how to spell your own name. But I'll give him this. He gives a shit.

So I'm not saying this is bad. It's just not as playful as the first. And no I don't think it has much to do with Katherina whats-her-name (aside from the fact that she's clearly having a good time). Something is wrong here. Beethoven's losing his hearing and may not even realize it yet. So he's playing it a little safe, even as his abilities increase.

There's a great story about how he was the soloist for the premiere of this piece (more $ that way, you see), and that by then he still hadn't bothered to write a lot of it down, and ended up playing his part from memory. Rehearsals were...tense.  Sounds like a very Dylan thing to do.

Things do pick up at the end of the first movement. And like in the first Concerto the Second movement is that calm oasis before the final movement, which on the whole is okay but not overwhelming.

In short, great for a guy losing his hearing, but just very good in the grand scheme of things.

B+

"Piano Concerto Number Three"

Symphony Two:

This premiered on the same day as the piano concerto! 

It's been said that the odd-numbered symphonies are the best, so it shouldn't be surprising that things aren't a vast improvement from what came before. In fact, it's just as good as number one, just not a quantum leap from it. 

But it is more single-minded, more confident, even with the increasing deafness becoming more apparent. It’s also a little longer than One. LV is stretching out. He knows what he wants to do. He’s emerged with a vision and a complete sense of identity.

And with the first movement, right out of the box, there it is! Kablam! LV is in the house! It's about halfway through when you get that trademark Beethovian seriousness combined with speed, like the early Clash. 

In the first movement, for twelve minutes he wiped the floor with you, but then in the second, for ten minutes, he tries to show you he’s really a sweet guy after all. And convinces you.

In the third movement, things get louder, but not faster. A nice transition.

And in the fourth, it's off to the races, sort of. Fast, slow, loud, quiet - like the Pixies. 

Running thirty-plus minutes - a respectable late-sixties album-length - it's about eight minutes longer than One, which is why I prefer the latter.

If you approach it in terms of vinyl, Symphony One being side one and Symphony Two side two, you might end up thinking Aqualung.

He’s getting better, but the first is still my fave.

 

A-

"Symphony Number Two"

The Notorious LVB: 1801

So our boy is filling out! Looking good and not "scowly" yet. But he is a bit Lennon-y in that this next work was barely done and he starts bitching about it, saying things like "do-over!" So it's all kind of muddy when exactly this was written but I'm going with 1801.

Piano Concerto 1:

Boy, for a piano concerto, there’s a whole lot of everything else going on in it, too. I’m listening for a kazoo right now…

 

So it takes a few minutes before AN ACTUAL PIANO shows up. (Maybe he was late? Okay, piano guy, you're getting an alarm clock for Christmas. Are you happy? Oh, and after the show, you're buying the first round.)

But once there, it goes right to his head and, from then on it's all about him. It's Jerry Lee Lewis before the actual Jerry Lee. He practically gets into a fistfight with the rest of the orchestra. (Doesn't anyone have the guts to fire the guy?? Well, no, because, well, the guy is old Ludvig van.)

So it turns out if all you want to hear is a piano, then you should check out the sonatas, which I have yet to do, so you're on your own.

Anyway, we've lucked out here, because there isn't too much of that fancy pinkie-twinkling they all like to when playing piano and drinking tea. It drives me nuts. If I were the conductor I'd spend the whole time walking around the orchestra like Al Capone, looking for anyone who was doing that, and rapping their knuckles with my baton.

Did you want to hear about the actual music? Well. All. Right.

It’s full to the brim with melody and tempo changes, okay? Ludvig van was most renowned as a piano player when he wrote this, and you can tell he’s already bursting out of that role.

And overall it’s all short and fast - about thirty minutes - so you're not looking at your watch or wishing to burn down the theater. So the rock and roll comparisons, I'd say the first Ramones album, but with a slower start.

And speaking of a cure for getting restless, please check out this performance. If this doesn't make our red-blooded American males fans of classical music nothing will. It will work for lesbians, too I assume. Possibly dead people.

But seriously, the real revelation here is that the pianist is having fun, which up to then was against the law in the Classical music world. There are a couple of parts where she actually shimmies. Watching it made the music more enjoyable and pushed my grade up from a B+.

I guess Neil Young was right. "Live Music is Better" bumper stickers really should be issued. Works for classical music, too!

Maybe especially.

A-

The Notorious LVB: 1800

So it turns out that 2020 was the 250th anniversary of Beethoven's birth. Yeah, I knew that. As of Yesterday! But all this Covidness pushed LVB off the headlines. It's just as well, I would have messed up the math.

Old Ludvig van is popular amongst sociopaths and gets a bad rap as a misanthrope. He would seem to be blowing people off or ignoring them when in fact he was just losing his hearing and became very self-conscious and shy. I think his strategy beats my idiotic "pretending to hear" routine where I nod and smile while someone is telling me their mom just died.

Anyway, on to the music:

First Symphony

I’ve probably listened to this more than any other piece of classical music, both because it’s side one of disc one of the first classical album I ever bought, and that I never got tired of it.

Ludvig Van makes a splash, sort of. It starts out modestly enough, Hadyn in plain sight, then picks up steam. Soon it gets all Moz-arty and finishes with the gusto that seems to say and that ain’t all!

Stately, but with a lot of melody. It isn’t until the fourth movement that you get a real dramatic opening. He’s fast, he’s slow, he’s somber, he’s sprightly, he’s quiet, he’s loud. But he’s not quite Beethoven yet.

So he hits all the marks expected of him, which someone who is about to blow up all those marks ought to do first so people don’t think he’s crazy. Too late, but whatever.

It’s a kitchen sink piece that I’d liken to The White Album, but it’s not nearly as long. It's short and to the point. A rock n roll equivalent might be - depending on your taste the first Monkees, Ramones or Modern Lovers albums, or the American version of Revolver.

And even though it may be my favorite it’s not his peak.

A-

"First Symphony"

World History Project: The Notorious L.V.B. 1980 - 2020

Some Smartypants (Possibly Mrs. Jaybee): Uh, point of order!

Jaybee: What?

SS(PMJ): Look at your title. Some people are going to think you're saying that Beethoven was born in 1980 and died in 2020.

Jaybee: Oh, come on, nobody's that stupid.

SS(PMJ): Do you watch the news?

Jaybee: Okay, point taken. I guess I should clarify. No, Ludvig Van wasn't born in 1980.

(aside) Jesus fuck, do I really have to explain this?

SS(PMJ): Yes, you do. You barely typed the title and you FUBARed Music History, possibly forever. Don't you know Jay Leno used to do "idiot on the street" interviews with people who thought it was Fidel Castro on the penny and the Civil War was in the NINETEEN sixties? Let's not even speak of 2020.

Jaybee: All right, all right, all right! Next thing you know you'll be telling me I don't pick up after myself.

SS(PMJ): Uh...

Jaybee: ANYWAY. Ludvig van Beethoven didn't die in 2020 (great Caesar's ball sack!). That was John Prine. But you were close.

The years above and below merely indicate times when I, Jaybee, immersed myself in LVB's music, and unlike Billy Joel, came out of it still loving rock n' roll.

So, now that we've gotten THAT out of the way...

SS(PMJ): You dropped your napkin.

2020: Corona and BLM

I normally try to keep the "research" for the colder months but COVID-19 and the Minneapolis police fucked that up. In late spring and early summer, when I usually celebrate the warmer weather by listening to lighter, "fun" music, was now dedicated to blocking out things like pandemics and crazy presidents, so I listened to some of my old vinyl.

But even there I'd see dead people, either from the 'Rona, or not.

I had just about finished this when George Floyd was murdered and knew I'd need something stronger. Something from before my lifetime, when there was a good reason for people to be dead.

1980: My First Classical Record

When you move out on your own you have an opportunity to know or remake yourself.

After a few months in my first apartment, I noticed I was eating a lot less red meat than when I lived at home. And First Jaybee Roommate and Best Jaybee Friend Mike got me into reading the Sunday NY Times instead of the Daily News.

Music-wise, I took advantage of Mike's records where I found Errol Garner's Concert by the Sea. Then I started getting jazz albums on my own, like Kind of Blue.

On one particular Sunday, the Times had an ad for the Musical Heritage Society, which was essentially the Columbia Record Club for classical music. They were offering an eight-LP set of Beethoven's Nine Symphonies for only $15! (plus shipping and handling!!). So I said what the hell and - six to eight weeks later - that became my first-ever classical music album. 

 

And as with most of my multi-disc explorations, I tended to play disc-one side-one a lot. And only on rare occasions - like a major "recycling" - got all the way through to disc eight.

2000: Banished to the Dungeon

Another factor that made it literally harder to get to these records was moving all our vinyl to the then-dungeon, now more-or-less-basement of mine and Mrs. Jaybee's house. The CDs were beginning to pile up and our living room was looking too much like a used record store, so down they went.

From that point, I was listening almost exclusively to CDs. I didn't get down to the basement unless there was an unpleasant chore or a prisoner interrogation to do. So LVB - along with a ton of other vinyl - sat there unlistened to for years.

I eventually got CD versions of the symphonies and burned them onto my work PC, where I could listen throughout the workday. I figured I’d just play and play them until they sank in, but all this seemed to accomplish was to blend them all together so that when I hear them I recognize them but I'm not even sure they're Beethoven let alone which symphony. As usual, my best-laid plans were blowing up in my face.

And worst of all, the World History Project was stuck - from a musical standpoint - at around 1800 or so.

2020 Again:

But there's nothing like tragedy and mayhem to sharpen one's focus, and I spent the entire month of June 2020 in a Ludvig Van deep dive.

One side benefit of all this is now that I've got two different versions of the Nine Symphonies, I get to do a Charles Emerson Winchester and say things like version x is "tentative" and version y is "sublime" (which for the longest time I thought was a flavor).

I'm still having issues telling one piece apart from another, but I will cautiously conclude that the CD version (by the Revolutionary Orchestra) is faster. Like the conductor had a lot of coffee or didn’t book enough studio time. By the way, I recommend this approach to anyone who's planning to record anything.

So this is a heads up for/warning about the next few posts, where I'll be going over the LVB Symphonies, and throw in a few other works that I’ve had the pleasure of hearing. But I’m going to break it up into chunks. It would be nuts to do otherwise. Figure it'll take all of February, which is Black History Month (Mrs. Jaybee is suddenly eyeing me very closely.) which in this case is really neither here nor there (Okay Mrs. Jaybee? Maybe not BLM though).

So I’ll tackle it by year, covering 1800 to 1825, with no respect intended, or rather none offered blindly. And rather than bore you with technical terms neither you nor I understand, I will try to relate these symphonies to some of my favorite records and artists. 

I’m STILL trying to figure out who his rock and roll equivalent is. Maybe by the end of all this, I’ll know.

 

But I can only share the tiny slice of his vast output that I've heard. Hmm, perhaps his RNRE is fellow curmudgeon Frank Zappa...

So now that the Best of 2020 (and next best) is out of the way, we'll meet up in February 2021 to talk about 1800.  

What?