Franz Schubert - Symphony No. 5 (1816)

Franz Peter Schubert (31 January 1797 – 19 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. Despite his short lifetime, Schubert left behind a vast oeuvre, including 600 secular vocal works (mainly Lieder), seven complete symphonies, sacred music, operas, incidental music and a large body of piano and chamber music. The Piano Quintet in A major, D. 667 (Trout Quintet), the Symphony No. 8, D. 759 (Unfinished Symphony), the three last piano sonatas, D. 958-960, and his song cycles Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise are some of his most important works. Please support my channel: Symphony No. 5 in B♭ major, D. 485, (1816) I. Allegro (0:00) II. Andante con moto (7:07) III. Menuetto. Allegro molto – Trio (16:14) IV. Allegro Vivace (21:00) Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment conducted by Charles Mackerras Description by Blair Johnston [-] As a 19 year old in Vienna in 1816, Franz Schubert found his life something of a bore. His employment as an assistant master at his father’s school could not have provided much fulfillment to one so talented and ambitious; further, his already plentiful compositions remained virtually unknown outside his immediate circle. Still, any personal dissatisfaction Schubert might have felt apparently had little effect on his productivity, for in that year he put to paper some 125 songs and over 50 other works for chorus, orchestra, piano, and various chamber ensembles. One of the brightest spots in this virtual avalanche of music is the Symphony No. 5 in B flat major, completed on October 3. In the Fifth Symphony, Schubert takes a step back from the dramatic affect of his “Tragic“ Symphony of a few months earlier, instead producing a work that sparkles with the clarity and ease of its obvious models, the symphonies of Haydn and especially Mozart. The distance between Schubert’s early instrumental music and later works like the “Great“ Symphony in C major (1825-1828) or the String Quintet in C major (1828), finished just a few weeks before he died, is great; in most ways, the non-vocal works composed before 1820 are the products of an imagination still searching for the answers to questions it has posed to itself. Perhaps because it addresses a different set of challenges, the Fifth Symphony represents the composer’s closest approach to complete mastery in the works of this period.