Symphony no. 5

The Fifth Symphony, in C major, op. 57, was finished in 1919 and subtitled Sinfonia svastika. The name is a theosophical one: Glass belonged to the Theosophical Society, for which the swastika was the ancient sun-wheel and a symbol of the cycle of life, and the symphony sets out a progression from darkness to light on that scheme. The association the sign acquired in the following decades is unrelated and postdates the score by more than a decade, but it has kept the work out of concert programmes ever since.