# Please post about any Symphony No.5 you like



## 20centrfuge (Apr 13, 2007)

SONNET CLV said:


> Indeed, the fifth is a great symphony to explore because you can hardly ever go wrong with a composer's Fifth Symphony. I think it has something to do with the looming figure of Beethoven, that somehow in the back of their consciousnesses composers feel compelled to complete a striking Fifth. I myself have explored Fifth symphonies, devoting certain listening weeks over the years exclusively to symphonies of this particular number. There are so many great ones: Schubert's, Bruckner's, Tchaikovsky's, Mahler's, Glazunov's, Shostakovich's, Prokofiev's, Vaughn Williams's, Sibelius's, Nielsen's, Bax's ... And so many by lesser known composers, several already mentioned on this thread. (Dvorak's Fifth may not be his greatest symphony, but it is certainly a good one. And when I was young, Dvorak's Ninth was known as the Fifth. I still have LPs of Dvorak's Fifth Symphony which are actually the "New World Symphony", so you may want to consider listening to such recordings in your survey.) I will add one more Fifth that is intriguing if not essential, the Fifth Symphony of Ferdinand Ries, a symphony in D minor. It was actually _not_ the fifth symphony Ries composed, but rather his second, a work dating to 1813 and "borrowing" a familiar motif from Beethoven's monumental Fifth in C minor. Unfortunately for poor Ries, the symphony was apparently misnumbered by his publisher and now bares its borrowed theme with a greater focus. When I said earlier about composers' consciousnesses guiding their approach to a Fifth Symphony, I didn't mean exactly what happens to Ries. Alas. Still, the work is a worthy one to sample in your exploration of Symphonies No. 5.


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