The Symphony No. 5 is the fifth symphony by the American composer

George Rochberg George Rochberg (July 5, 1918May 29, 2005) was an American composer of contemporary classical music. Long a serial composer, Rochberg abandoned the practice following the death of his teenage son in 1964; he claimed this compositional techniqu ...

. It was commissioned by the

Chicago Symphony Orchestra The Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) was founded by Theodore Thomas in 1891. The ensemble makes its home at Orchestra Hall in Chicago and plays a summer season at the Ravinia Festival. The music director is Riccardo Muti, who began his tenu ...

, which first performed the piece under the direction of Georg Solti on March 13, 1986. The symphony has a duration of approximately 28 minutes and is cast a single continuous movement. It was a finalist for the 1986

Pulitzer Prize for Music The Pulitzer Prize for Music is one of seven Pulitzer Prizes awarded annually in Letters, Drama, and Music. It was first given in 1943. Joseph Pulitzer arranged for a music scholarship to be awarded each year, and this was eventually converted ...

Reception

The symphony has been largely praised by music critics. Reviewing a recording of the piece, Andrew Farach-Colton of '' Gramophone'' called it "a gripping, emotionally expansive work – cast in a single movement of almost half an hour's duration – whose gestures are defiantly traditional." He added, "Rochberg alludes here to

Mahler Gustav Mahler (; 7 July 1860 – 18 May 1911) was an Austro-Bohemian Romantic composer, and one of the leading conductors of his generation. As a composer he acted as a bridge between the 19th-century Austro-German tradition and the modernism ...

Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...

and

Shostakovich Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich, , group=n (9 August 1975) was a Soviet-era Russian composer and pianist who became internationally known after the premiere of his First Symphony in 1926 and was regarded throughout his life as a major compo ...

, among others, though he somehow manages to create a unified, utterly individual style." Anthony Burton of '' BBC Music Magazine'' was slightly more critical, however, remarking, "The Fifth Symphony, unheard since its premiere by the Chicago Symphony and Solti in 1986, is in a single large movement, alternating between anguished near-atonality and much more consonant slow episodes, largely in the accents of Mahler; as it progresses it settles increasingly into the slower music, a shift which feels suspiciously like a capitulation to easy listening rather than a genuine resolution of conflict."

References

Compositions by George Rochberg 1984 compositions Rochberg 5 Music commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra {{symphony-stub