Taking the Fifth (Symphony) Trivia Quiz

Answer: Beethoven

When you say "the Fifth Symphony," people immediately think of Beethoven. The four-note motif must have grabbed the audience's attention the first time it was performed, in Vienna in 1808.

Answer: Dvořák

In the mid-twentieth century, the standard listing of Antonin Dvořák's symphonies included only five of them, and the "New World" symphony, now called the ninth, was numbered as his fifth. The Burghauser catalog added four early symphonies of his to the canon, bumping the numbers of the previously acknowledged symphonies upward. This one, in F major, was previously called his third.

Answer: Schubert

Franz Schubert's Fifth Symphony, written when he was nineteen, keeps a place in the repertoire even if it's not as well known as his eighth and ninth. The eighth, called the "Unfinished" Symphony, has only two movements, though he made a start on a third. The seventh is only sketched out. It's occasionally heard in various arrangements.

Answer: Tchaikovsky

Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony in E Minor is nearly as popular as his sixth, called the "Pathétique." The gloomy tune that starts it becomes a triumphant march at the end. The song "Moon Love," sung by Frank Sinatra, uses the main tune from the second movement.

His Fourth Symphony also has a "fate" motif, but it's heard only in the first and last movements.

Answer: Vaughan Williams

While many composers of the twentieth century experimented with increasingly dissonant combinations of notes, Ralph Vaughan Williams usually stuck with more comprehensible harmonies. This was especially true of his Fifth Symphony when compared with his Fourth. The symphony includes music from an opera he was concurrently composing, "The Pilgrim's Progress."

Answer: Mahler

Gustav Mahler wrote long symphonies. Some of them don't fit on a single CD. The fifth is probably the most popular of them, largely because of its sentimental fourth movement, known as the "Adagietto." He wrote nine symphonies in all, ten if you count "Das Lied von der Erde" (the song of the Earth), which he avoided calling a numbered symphony because he was superstitious about writing more symphonies than Beethoven.

Answer: Shostakovich

Before Dimitri Shostakovich wrote his Fifth Symphony in 1937, he had been under heavy attack from the government-controlled press for his avant-garde music. In Stalin's time, that could mean not just a loss of income but exile to Siberia or even death.

The new symphony was outwardly more conventional than his preceding work, and it brought him back to favor. However, it contains elements that could hold disguised mockery. PBS's "Keeping Score" blog, for example, says that "many hear a subtext of critical despair beneath the crowd-pleasing melodies."

Answer: Mozart

This early symphony in B Flat by Mozart features a "Mannheim crescendo" in the first movement and significant use of horns throughout. The whole thing takes seven or eight minutes to perform.

Answer: Mendelssohn

Felix Mendelssohn's Fifth Symphony, called the "Reformation" Symphony, was actually the second symphony he wrote, but it was the fifth in order of publication. The last movement is based on "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God," a hymn by Martin Luther.

Answer: Sibelius

Jean Sibelius finished the first version of his Fifth Symphony in 1915 but made major changes to it afterward, reaching its final form in 1919. The final version has an unusual structure, with a scherzo (normally a separate movement) incorporated into the first movement.

The last movement has a famous theme supposedly inspired by the composer's seeing sixteen swans taking flight together. The six chords at the end are separated by silences of several seconds.