Born in 1891, Sergei Prokofiev began writing music at the age of five and went on to study with Glière. He eventually attended the St. Petersburg Conservatory where he benefited from the tutelage of some of the most famous Russian composers of the time, including Lyadov and Rimsky-Korsakov. It was at the Conservatory where Prokofiev found the impetus for his first and most popular symphony, the “Classical.” As Prokofiev later explained, Haydn provided the impetus for the Classical Symphony, both his music and his innovative approach to composition. As Prokofiev writes in his autobiography,  

It seemed to me that if Haydn had lived into this era, he would have kept his own style while absorbing things from what was new in music. That’s the kind of symphony I wanted to write: a symphony in the Classical style. And when I saw that my idea was beginning to work, I called it the Classical Symphony: in the first place because it was simpler, and secondly, for the fun of it, to “tease the geese,” and in the secret hope that I would prove to be right if the symphony really did turn out to be a piece of classical music.

Just as the Classical Symphony emulated the era of Haydn, Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 5 explores the Romantic period. The work was written during World War II in tumultuous times, but there was light at the end of the tunnel: the tide had begun to turn in the war, and victory over fascism seemed possible. In the Fifth Symphony, Prokofiev seems to be trying to capture this spirit of heroism on a grand scale. “I regard the Fifth Symphony as the culmination of a long period of my creative life,” he wrote. “I conceived it as a symphony of the grandeur of the human spirit.” Its premiere took place just after the announcement of a great Soviet victory on January 13, 1945. As Prokofiev’s biographer Nestyev wrote of the occasion,