History

Piston's Fifth Symphony was commissioned by the Juilliard School of Music on the occasion of their 50th anniversary. It was completed in 1954, but premiered only on February 24, 1956 by the Juilliard Orchestra, conducted by Jean Morel. The program also included premieres of works by Peter Mennin

Peter Mennin

Peter Mennin was an American composer and teacher. He directed the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, then for many years ran the Juilliard School, succeeding William Schuman in this role...

, Lukas Foss

Lukas Foss

Lukas Foss was a German-born American composer, conductor, and pianist.-Music career:He was born Lukas Fuchs in Berlin, Germany in 1922. His father was the philosopher and scholar Martin Fuchs...

, Milton Babbitt

Milton Babbitt

Milton Byron Babbitt was an American composer, music theorist, and teacher. He is particularly noted for his serial and electronic music.-Biography:...

, Irving Fine

Irving Fine

Irving Gifford Fine was an American composer. Fine's work assimilated neo-classical, romantic and, later, serial elements...

, Ross Lee Finney

Ross Lee Finney

Ross Lee Finney Junior was an American composer born in Wells, Minnesota who taught for many years at the University of Michigan. He studied with Nadia Boulanger, Edward Burlingame Hill, Alban Berg and Roger Sessions...

, and William Schuman

William Schuman

William Howard Schuman was an American composer and music administrator.-Life:Born in Manhattan in New York City to Samuel and Rachel Schuman, Schuman was named after the twenty-seventh U.S. president, William Howard Taft, although his family preferred to call him Bill...

 (Pollack 1982, 117).

Analysis

The work is in three movements

Movement (music)

A movement is a self-contained part of a musical composition or musical form. While individual or selected movements from a composition are sometimes performed separately, a performance of the complete work requires all the movements to be performed in succession...

:

• Lento—Allegro con spirito
• Adagio
• Allegro lieto

A typical performance will last around 21 minutes.

The first movement is in sonata-allegro form

Sonata form

Sonata form is a large-scale musical structure used widely since the middle of the 18th century . While it is typically used in the first movement of multi-movement pieces, it is sometimes used in subsequent movements as well—particularly the final movement...

, with an introductory Lento, which returns at the end in varied form as a coda. The slow movement begins with a twelve-tone row, the intervals of which are related to motives from the first movement. The main theme of the Adagio is also related to the intervals of this row, but is more diatonic in construction. The movement is in variation form, but the variations are continuous rather than sectional, and are begun in succession by the clarinet, divisi strings, and tuba. The finale is a rondo, and is the most diatonic of the three movements. As is usual with Pistonian finales, it is drivingly rhythmic (Keyes 1965). The impression of a strong "American" sound is produced in this movement by a spaciousness of melodies and textures. The main theme, in C major, spans more than two octaves in jagged fourths, and the secondary theme is marked by jaunty syncopations (Archibald 1978, 266). These jazzlike figures are indebted to up-tempo Broadway cabaret songs. Piston's treatment of them are at the same time witty and dated. The three movements do not form as satisfactory a symphonic whole as is found in the Fourth

Symphony No. 4 (Piston)

-History:Piston composed his Fourth Symphony on commission from the University of Minnesota to mark the centennary of the university's foundation in the following year...

 and Sixth

Symphony No. 6 (Piston)

-History:Piston composed the symphony to mark the 75th Anniversary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He dedicated the score to the memory of Serge Koussevitzky and his wife Natalie. The symphony was first performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Charles Munch, on November 25,...

Symphonies (Pollack 1982, 117).