Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Fifth Symphony is a staunch departure from the preceding Fourth. No. 4 is highly dissonant; the opening grips the listener with a disconcerted, angular introduction that never seems to truly resolve. The Fifth, in contrast, is serene and placid. In his first four symphonies, Vaughan Williams defines his tonal language and orchestral strategies, and some may attest that the Fifth Symphony does little to expand Vaughan Williams’ compositional palette. Instead, the Fifth adds dimension and nuance to the composer’s symphonic output. 

Vaughan Williams had already started composing the Fifth (1938–1943) as Britain entered World War II. His previous experience serving in the Great War colored his musical response to yet another large-scale conflict and, as a result, Symphony No. 5 is overall quite elegiac and some of Vaughan Williams’ most gentle writing. While Vaughan Williams is clearly meditating on turmoil and its impact on life, Aaron Copland simply described Symphony No. 5 as “staring at a cow for forty-five minutes.” The American did not, apparently, feel that the Pastoral Symphony (Vaughan Williams’ Third) conjured grazing cattle, though fellow-Brit Peter Warlock certainly made some quips to this end. 

Livestock or not, by 1939 Vaughan Williams had defined his musical vernacular and, in the throes of war, is credited as the composer to loosen Germany’s stylistic hold on orchestral music in England (though it should here be stated that Dame Ethel Smyth had been working at this decades before, especially in terms of English opera). Ralph Vaughan Williams credits Maurice Ravel (he studied in Paris after the turn of the century) for truly unlocking harmonic possibilities, guiding Vaughan Williams away from “the heavy contrapuntal Teutonic manner.” Four decades later, Vaughan Williams’ harmonic prowess had become entirely his own. Wandering modality suffuses Symphony No. 5. Vaughan Williams’ use of suspensions and passing tones over a pedal bass create rich, complex harmonies that never quite establish any one true “tonic.” His major-minor fluctuations also blur any sense of harmonic homeland, adding to an overall expansive but ambiguous tonal atmosphere. 

The Preludio opens with a C pedal tone in the low strings while two French horns oscillate around a floaty D-major motif. Rather than a dissonant outcome, Vaughan Williams’ haunting orchestration creates a mystic, foggy atmosphere at the symphony’s onset. The Scherzo begins equally mysterious; the ¾ frolic through the rainy English countryside is as mercurial as it is rustic. Vaughan Williams employs a sort of rhythmic counterpoint in his second movement: strings pass running eighth-note lines while winds are overlaid across bar lines, blurring a sense of overt rhythmic structure. The most bucolic is the third movement, Romanza. Muted strings support a brief English horn solo before woodwinds provide further melodic commentary. The Romanza is the most prayerful section of Symphony No. 5, recalling the “massive quietness” of Vaughan Williams’ Pastoral Symphony. The Passacaglia closes Vaughan Williams’ symphony; the theme and variations unfold after celli provide the thematic material that will evolve consistently through the end of the symphony. Brightly triumphant brass fanfares dot the movement, permeating the entire finale with a sense of optimistic triumph.  

Symphony No. 5 is considered by many to be Vaughan Williams’ greatest achievement. The Fifth Symphony is deeply serene in contrast to the bitter war that waged on, and many listeners consider it a “symphony of hope.” Unsurprisingly, the peace brought forth by Vaughan Williams’ work was received with immediate praise from hunkered-down, war-exhausted British audiences. The premiere took place in London on June 24, 1943, while the Battle of Bamber Bridge erupted amongst U.S. troops in northern England.