Music

Beethoven’s (and others’) Fifth Symphony(s)

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Douglas from the Music Library concludes his series of articles about Ludwig van Beethoven marking the composer’s 250th anniversary year:

“I possibly have a thing for fifth symphonies.

If I were to choose my Desert Island Discs from just symphonies, I think it is possible that the list would have four fifth symphonies, in no order at all, Shostakovich, Mahler, Sibelius and Beethoven. 

Thinking about this, I decided to do a trawl of the internet to see what it said about fifth symphonies. Two things jumped out from the results of typing in “famous fifth symphonies” – first that there are a lot of lists of famous fifth symphonies and top ten symphonies and in all of these, Beethoven’s Fifth comes out on top. The second thing is there are a lot of articles about Beethoven’s Fifth.

I write this neither to defend or deride Beethoven’s Fifth. It is a great work and great fun to play. I want to bring attention, if indeed they need my help which I doubt they do, to all the other fifths.

Beethoven’s Fifth starts with probably one of the most well known openings:
Da Da Da Dah—- Da Da Da Dah—-.
Famous, portentous, wartime jingle, V for victory, which despite most of us not being around at that time we remember it for.

There is another symphony which has a very similar opening of short, short, short, long (Da Da Da Dah): Mahler’s Fifth. It has a similar portentous opening on a solo trumpet leading to the full orchestral tutti. This symphony’s other claim to fame is its 4th movement, the famous Adagietto, which is well known and is played on its own as a concert piece. It was used by Visconti in his film ‘Death in Venice’ and above all, is supremely beautiful.

Two fifth symphonies which served as responses to criticisms are those by Shostakovich and Sibelius. Shostakovich called his Fifth, an artist reply to just criticism. This simple phrase and the symphony may have saved his life, Shostakovich lived in Russia during the time of Stalin when people fell in and out of favour regularly and for little reason. Shostakovich’s Fourth Symphony, a single movement work which for many pushed the boundaries just too far, so Dmitri responded with the Fifth which was, luckily for him, well received.

It was a similar, although probably less perilous case for the composer Sibelius and his Fifth symphony, of which the 1919 and 3rd attempt is the version best known today. Sibelius was commissioned by the Finnish Government to write this work to celebrate his 50th birthday on the 8 December 1915. Sibelius wrote in his diaries at that time about the composing of the Fifth symphony:
“It is as if God Almighty had thrown down pieces of a mosaic for heaven’s floor and asked me to find out what was the original pattern”.

The work was given its first performance on his 50th birthday. Sibelius worked on a second version which was performed a year later and of which little survives. Sibelius then reworked the symphony, remodelling and simplifying it, reducing the impact of its modernity which in this symphony and his Fourth, had been poorly received. Sibelius said of his modifications: “I wished to give my symphony another – more human – form. More down-to-earth, more vivid.”

When looking through the ages of music history and looking at the composers who were symphonists, during the classical period and earlier to the first exponents of this form, composers polished off symphonies with great regularity many achieving double figures: Mozart 41, Joseph Haydn 104, Michael Haydn 43, etc.

With Beethoven’s Symphonic cycle and his expansion of the form, symphonies moved away from works produced to fulfil the needs of a greedy patron but became thoughtful long produced, reworked, rethought works, which fully demonstrated who a composer was rather than who the patron thought the composer was. The romantic and later composers rarely exceeded double figures and there are notable examples of composers who didn’t get beyond a third or fourth, such was the importance of the symphony and its response to their definition as a composer.

Brahms and Schumann, both only managed four symphonies but it is true to say that in these four symphonies, Brahms and Schumann say as much about themselves and their artistic development and maturity as composers as Beethoven did in his nine.

There are theories that the fifth is where a composer finds his or her feet and their fifth truly reflects who they are, and in some cases this may be true but as mentioned earlier, for Shostakovich and Sibelius, their fifths were expedient. There are composers for whom their fifth is truly their first – the first time they have spoken fully with their own artistic voice. Others for whom their fifth serves as the ultimate or penultimate expression of their symphonic output. To go back to where I started with the fifths of Shostakovich, Mahler, Sibelius and Beethoven, now add the fifths of Tchaikovsky, Vaughan Williams and Arnold and –

I think I have a thing for fifth symphonies.

Here is a list of composers who wrote a fifth symphony. This list is not in any way comprehensive or in any order. I don’t know them all, so couldn’t recommend them all.

Bruckner
Martinu
Prokofiev
Neilsen
Villa Lobos
Silvestriv
Rubbra
Henze
Bax
Alwyn
Mendelssohn
Piston
Mozart
Haydn, M
Haydn, J

Your library card gives you free access to Naxos Music Library, the world´s largest online classical music streaming library where you can explore, stream and download any of over a million tracks and enjoy these symphonic masterpieces at your leisure”.

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