Symphony No.5 in F Dur, Op.76

And mere four days after the completion of the D-Major piano quartet, Dvorak began to write his FIFTH SYMPHONY. It was created in just six weeks in June and July 1875, and in the autograph was marked as opus 24, but upon its later publication in 1888, Simrock assigned it an opus number 76. The premiere took place four years after the work was composed, on 25 March 1879, at the concert of Slavonic music held by the Academic Readers' Association in the Prague Žofín concert hall, conducted by Adolf Čech. The symphony bears a dedication to great conductor Hans von Bülow, in acknowledgement of his having systematically championed Dvořák's orchestral works. A culmination in the early orchestral output of the founder of the Bohemian Symphonic school, the Fifth Symphony already exhibits the typical features of his mature individual style and traces the projection of Dvorak's great late masterpieces. With its orderly structure, distinctly articulated themes in the four movements and logically built overall form, it ranks among the opuses which in the late nineteenth century revived the construction of the classical symphonic cycle, filling it with new romantic content. The symphony has no official programmatic title, nevertheless scholars have often dubbed it Pastoral in account of suggestion conveyed by its first movement – the opening theme, resembling a pastoral tune, grows against the backdrop of sustained "bagpipe" fifths, and the closing theme features the peculiar intonational sequence of the hunting horn. The elegiac cello theme in the second movement echoes the intonations of the Slavonic songs and the third is pervaded by vital and genre-marked dance-like rhythm. The contrasting dramatic finale carries a kind of general conclusion; the theme from the first movement reappears here to end in a jubilant climax.