5th Symphony (Prokofiev)

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The Symphony no. 5 in B flat major , Opus 100 (composed in 1944, premiered in Moscow on 13 January 1945 by the State Symphony Orchestra of the USSR under the composer) is the größtangelegte and sonically powerful of the seven symphonies by Sergei Prokofiev . After the “ classical ” it is his best known and most recorded symphonic work. In terms of the progressiveness and complexity of the language and expression, however, it lags behind the avant-garde Second Symphony , the more dissonant Third Symphony and the structurally freer Sixth Symphony .

Like Shostakovich's Seventh and Khachaturian Second Symphony, Prokofiev's Fifth functioned as a patriotic-heroic Soviet “war symphony ”. The composer withdrew their generally affirmative character in his subsequent tragic symphony, as did Shostakovich in his Eighth .

Emergence

The work was written during World War II in 1944, a few months after completing the eighth sonata. "I tried to convey the main idea of ​​this symphony - the triumph of the human spirit," Prokofiev wrote later. In doing so, he created the manuscript of the symphony, as he stated in a letter to AS Lyapunova, initially for piano with marked instrument markings. It is written in pencil and full of numerous references to the instruments of the orchestra and also refers to "additions" that are not included in the original manuscript. The manuscript that is now in the Russian National Library is therefore listed there as a "draft from my own hand". Nevertheless, the text is easy to read. There are almost no strikings and corrections that are otherwise characteristic of drafts, and the additions, as Prokofiev calls them, are either written on the blank page covers or added to the end of the manuscript. In contrast to the main draft, which is written on smaller sheets of music, all these additions are already notated in the form of a score, and not for piano, on music paper with 12 staves. At the end of the main body of the manuscript, the date August 22, 1944 is given, and "Addendum 55" which ends the manuscript reads: "Orchestration ended November 29, 1944. SP".

Musical structure

The work consists of four movements. The total duration is about 45 minutes.

  1. Andante ; Epic head movement dominated by the use of brass
  2. Allegro marcato ; partly playful, partly motoric Scherzo
  3. Adagio ; extensive slow movement with echoes of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's late style
  4. Allegro giocoso ; dance finale

The line-up is 2 + 1, 2 + 1, 2 + es + bass, 2 + 1 - 4, 3, 3, 1, timp, perc: wdbl / tamb / tgl / SD / cyms / BD / tam-t, hp , pft, st

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Prokofiev on Prokofiev. Articles and interviews / comp. VP Varunts. - M., 1991 - p. 209.
  2. ↑ Aranovsky MG The world acts ... // Stories about music and musicians again. - M., 1973. - pp. 92-93.
  3. ↑ The information on the manuscript of the symphony was taken from the Virtual Exhibition on Prokofiev of the Russian National Library ( NLR ) and translated for this article. Some original pages can be seen in the exhibition as examples. The original of the manuscript is kept in the NLR collection.

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