Jonathan Leshnoff
(American; b.1973)

Symphony No. 5
I. Molto rubato ♩ = 60
II. ♩ = 106
III. Slow ♩ = 56

Composed 2025
World Premiere performance

The symphony stands as the foundation of Jonathan Leshnoff’s output. His by now eight completed symphonies, plus others still in progress, contain some of his most profound and personal musical statements. Collectively, these works reflect his belief, as a living American composer, in the importance of continuing the symphonic legacy. In his hands, the symphony is molded into a vibrant, inexhaustible art form that communicates as directly and comprehensibly to today’s listeners as masterpieces like Brahms’ Second Symphony (also heard at this weekend’s concerts) did when that music was new. As Leshnoff himself explains, “A symphony is a rite of passage, a rare opportunity to express compositional logic, form and emotion directly to the audience. It is as close to pure music embedded within the composer’s soul that one can have.”

Leshnoff regards the idea of a “fifth symphony” as an important milestone in a composer’s output. Monuments of the repertoire bearing the number 5 include Beethoven’s, Tchaikovsky’s, Mahler’s, Sibelius’s, and Shostakovich’s Fifths, while other major symphonists like Schumann, Brahms, and Ives never made it that far. Leshnoff charts an original course in his Fifth, structuring the work in three numbered movements: first slow, then fast, and finally a brief slow epilogue. Requiring triple woodwinds, standard brass forces, an ample percussion section, piano, harp, and strings, the score gives only tempo indications with metronome markings and no programmatic titles. Leshnoff allows the music to speak for itself, thus making this the first of his symphonies to forgo any extramusical reference points.

The opening slow movement begins with the principal theme of the entire symphony, a widely spaced violin melody suspended above sustained harmonies in the upper strings. Its steady melodic tread subsequently transforms into a dotted-rhythm variant that builds to a climactic restatement of the theme above a major triad. This is a notable moment in the movement’s expressive arc, as so many of the preceding harmonies are built upon minor chords. Eventually the theme descends into the lowest register of the strings and woodwinds before subsiding into an extended silence.

Out of that silence, the second movement erupts with two new ideas: a pair of crashing full-orchestra hits followed by onrushing sixteenth notes. Whereas the opening movement inhabited an atmosphere of contemplative spaciousness, the unbridled rhythmic impetus of this movement is a marked emotive contrast. Overall cohesion is achieved, however, when the principal theme from the opening movement prominently reappears in unison on the four French horns. Leshnoff continues to explore the developmental possibilities of what is now a set of three musical ideas: paired orchestral hits, rapid sixteenth-note figuration, and the symphony’s principal theme. The music reaches its climax when, after another brief silence, the principal theme rings out as a clarion call from the brass. The brief third movement follows without a break, ending the symphony with a slow, contented epilogue. A solo cello sounds a farewell to the symphony’s principal theme, before the melody gives way to a clockwork-like ostinato shared by the vibraphone, marimba, harp, and piano that gradually disappears into silence once more. 

Aaron Ziegel, ©2026