Symphony No. 5 (Chávez)

The Fifth Symphony was commissioned on 24 September 1952 by the Koussevitzky Music Foundation, and was sketched in July and August 1953.

The score is dedicated to the memory of Serge and Natalie Koussevitsky.

[2] The work is scored for a conventional string orchestra of violins I and II, violas, cellos, and double basses.

This is especially pronounced in the last movement, whose contrapuntal textures lend it a decidedly baroque character.

The style of the movement resembles the opening of the Allegro of the Third Symphony, though of course without the powerful effect of a large orchestra.

Izler Solomon (in 1948), who made the first recording of Chávez's Fifth Symphony