Symphony No. 5 (Sibelius)

Symphony No. 5
by Jean Sibelius
Sibelius in 1918. The picture was taken shortly after Sibelius had suffered in the food shortages during the Finnish Civil War of that year.
Key	E-flat major
Catalogue	Op. 82
Composed	1915 (1915)–1919

The Symphony No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 82, by Jean Sibelius is a symphony in three movements that typically lasts around 33 minutes.

Sibelius was commissioned to write this symphony by the Finnish government in honour of his 50th birthday, which had been declared a national holiday. The symphony was originally composed in 1915. It was revised first in 1916 and then again in 1919.

During the composition phase, Sibelius wrote in his diary: "It is as if God Almighty had thrown down pieces of a mosaic for heaven’s floor and asked me to find out what was the original pattern."

The original version was premiered by Sibelius himself with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra on his own 50th birthday, 8 December 1915. The second version (only part of which has survived) was first performed by the Orchestra of Turun Soitannollinen Seura in Turku exactly one year later. The final version, which is the most commonly performed today, was premiered by Sibelius conducting the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra on 24 November 1919.

The 1910s were a decade of change for the symphonic form which had existed for over two centuries. Meanwhile, various landmark works in other genres had presented further radical developments. In 1909 Schoenberg continued pushing for more dissonant and chromatic harmonies in his Five Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 16. From 1910–1913 Igor Stravinsky premiered his innovative and revolutionary ballets, Petrushka and The Rite of Spring (Le Sacre du Printemps). Ravel and Debussy were at work developing and performing their Impressionistic music. Though having spent nearly 30 years in the public spotlight, Jean Sibelius found his works receiving poor reviews for the first time with the 1911 premiere of his Fourth Symphony and, as James Hepokoski theorized, the composer “was beginning to sense his own eclipse as a contending modernist.”