Symphony No.5 in B flat major D485

Unlike Mozart, Schubert in his youth had no access to a professional orchestra. There was, however, a student orchestra at his school in Vienna and musical accomplishment in his family was such that he and his father and his two brothers were able to form a string quartet which, as friends joined in, developed to orchestral proportions. It was for this ensemble that he wrote his early symphonies. The reduction in the number of instruments used between the “Tragic” Fourth and the Fifth, both of them written in 1816, could mean no more than that a few wind players had left in the intervening six months. Or it could be that the composer wanted to return to the early classical style he clearly liked so much.

Whatever the reason for the change, Schubert does it with consummate accomplishment. The opening of the Fifth, which sounds like the beginning of a slow introduction for woodwind but which actually turns out to be an integral part of the Allegro, is original in concept and brilliant in execution. If the Andante con moto, which begins with a well-behaved theme of positively Mozartian poise, gets into harmonic situations Mozart would have avoided, the last two movements are less adventurous. The model for the vigorous outer sections of the Menuetto is clearly the corresponding movement in Mozart’s Symphony No.40 in G minor and an inspired contemporary of Haydn and Mozart might have written much of the closing Allegro vivace - apart, that is, from the striking anticipation of “Great” C major which briefly but emphatically emerges at one point.

After the “Tragic” Symphony in C minor, the Fifth Symphony in B flat major was not, theoretically, the logical next stop in Schubert’s development. In his Fourth Symphony he had broken through the early-classical mould to an awareness of Beethoven and even an anticipation of romanticism. In his Fifth he reversed the development. But, realistically, could Schubert at the age of nineteen have known where the next step after the Fourth would take him? And when he came to write the Fifth did his amateur orchestra still have the double woodwind, four horns, two trumpets and timpani, the availability of which had no doubt influenced the serious content of its predecessor? The sparse instrumentation of the Fifth – no clarinets, trumpets or timpani with only one flute and two each of oboes, bassoons and horns to go with the strings – suggests that the orchestra had suffered more than a few losses in the meantime.

If in these circumstances Schubert had no alternative but to revert to the early-classical style he did it in his own way nevertheless. The opening, which sounds like the beginning of a slow introduction for woodwind before the strings make their eager entry with the main theme of the Allegro, is original in concept and brilliant in execution. Too good a moment to forget, it is recalled in a development section that goes on to push through a dramatic succession of key changes on an energetic little motif derived from the main theme.

Schubert’s extraordinary harmonic imagination is even more in evidence in the slow movement. Its main theme, introduced by strings and repeated by woodwind, is as well behaved as its Mozartian poise suggests. It alternates, however, with another theme, a rather more agitated idea, that plunges without warning into remote key areas where Mozart would not have ventured. It is so far off course, in fact, that it has trouble finding its way back home to the main theme. It has less trouble on its second appearance but in each case, with their dramatic use of dynamics as well as their harmonic daring, these episodes are closer to the “Unfinished” Symphony than early-classical practice.

If the last two movements are less adventurous, they are no less entertaining for that, and they are not without their distinctive characteristics either. The model for the vigorous outer sections of the Menuetto is clearly the corresponding movement in Mozart’s Symphony No.40 in G minor; the gently lilting ländler-style trio section, on the other hand, is pure Schubert. Similarly, while an inspired contemporary of Haydn and Mozart might have written much of the closing Allegro vivace, only Schubert could have thought of the second subject – not only the charming melodic line, that is, but also the striking anticipation of the “Great” C major when it briefly but emphatically turns to the minor.