Symphony No. 5 in D major by the English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams was written between 1938 and 1943. In style it represents a shift away from the violent dissonance of his Fourth Symphony, and a return to the gentler style of the earlier Pastoral Symphony. Many of the musical themes in the Fifth Symphony stem from Vaughan Williams's then-unfinished operatic work, The Pilgrim's Progress. This opera, or "morality" as Vaughan Williams preferred to call it, had been in gestation for decades, and the composer had temporarily abandoned it at the time the symphony was conceived. Despite its origins, the symphony is without programmatic content. The work was an immediate success at its premiere in 1943, and is frequently performed in concert and on record. History Background In 1935 Vaughan Williams had caused surprise and even shock with his Fourth Symphony, a strident and dissonant piece in great contrast with its quiet and contemplative predecessor, A Pastoral Symphony (1922). After this he experienced a temporary writer's block, before he began writing his Fifth Symphony in 1938. He had been working intermittently for more than thirty years on what became his opera (or "Morality") The Pilgrim's Progress. Believing that the opera might never be completed he decided to incorporate some of its ideas and themes into other works, most notably the Fifth Symphony. The symphony was complete enough by the end of 1942 for the composer to prepare a two-piano transcription, which two friends played for him in late January 1943. Any doubts he had about the piece were allayed when he heard the first orchestral run-through on 25 May. He found that the symphony said what he meant it to. Vaughan Williams dedicated the symphony to Jean Sibelius. The musicologist J. P. E. Harper-Scott has called Sibelius "the influence of choice" among British symphonists in the years between the two World Wars, citing Walton's First Symphony, all seven of Bax's and the first five of Havergal Brian. The published ascription reads "Dedicated without permission to Jean Sibelius". Sir Adrian Boult subsequently secured permission. After listening to a broadcast of the work, Sibelius wrote to him, "I heard Dr. Ralph Vaughan Williams' new Symphony from Stockholm under the excellent leadership of Malcolm Sargent ... This Symphony is a marvellous work ... the dedication made me feel proud and grateful ... I wonder if Dr. Williams has any idea of the pleasure