Symphony no. 5 in B-flat major, D. 485

Schubert wrote his Fifth Symphony in the autumn of 1816, at nineteen, for the amateur orchestra that had outgrown his father's flat and now rehearsed at the home of Otto Hatwig, a bassoonist from the Theater an der Wien. The band's modest forces shaped the score: no clarinets, no trumpets, no timpani, and a chamber-like lightness throughout. That informal gathering was the only performance Schubert ever heard; the symphony had to wait until February 1873, in London, for its first public hearing, more than four decades after his death.

The work breathes the air of Mozart, whom Schubert was worshipping that summer. A diary entry of June 1816 hails the older master as immortal and thanks him for the glimpses of a brighter life his music leaves in the soul. Like Mozart's Fortieth, the symphony dispenses with a slow introduction and simply begins, the violins tracing a dancing theme over a few bars of woodwind chords. The slow movement flows with a Mozartian grace, yet its second theme, a tender exchange between strings and winds, already speaks in Schubert's own romantic voice. The Minuet balances courtly manners against the rustic swing of the Ländler, and the brief Finale closes the symphony in high spirits. It is the most affectionate of Schubert's early symphonies, a young man's homage that turns, almost unnoticed, into a self-portrait.