According to the musicologist , they have become regarded by Ukrainians as the pinnacle of modern Ukrainian musical culture. The Fourth Symphony (1963) has an expressive contemporary character, challenging for the listener because of its atonal aspects, and is more reminiscent of Shostakovich than its predecessors. The slow second movement begins darkly, but is followed by a chorale surrounded by shimmering bells and a celesta used to depict the Belgian city of Bruges, "a brief but really haunting invention". The symphony's coda contains lyrical string solos and a subdued clashing of bells. In his Fifth Symphony (the 'Slavonic', in C major, (1965–1966)), which includes liturgical melodies from the Orthodox Church, the music is more post-Nationalist in nature than other works conposed during this period in the composer's career, Lyatoshynsky included a Russian folk song as the main theme and a song from Yugoslavia as a secondary theme. Like Gliere's Symphony No. 3, it alludes to Ilya Muromets, a legendary Russian warrior. Operas and choral works Lyatoshynsky wrote the opera Schors (19371938, revised as The Commander in 1948), and The Solemn Cantata (1939). In 1927 he edited and arranged the score for Mykola Lysenko's 1910 comic opera (1927) and for Lysenko's Taras Bulba (19361937). Lyatoshynsky's opera The Golden Ring, first staged in 1930, is the most notable example of Ukrainian historical opera during the first half of the 20th century. The music and the libretto blend historical, mythological, and social themes, and Lyatoshynsky's score organically combines contemporary musical expressions (such as leitmotifs) with Ukrainian folk tunes. The Golden Ring was the first example of an orchestrally 'symphonic' work in the history of Ukrainian opera. It appeared at the end of the era of creative experimentalism, which ended with the arrival of Stalinism. Over the next three decades, the opera failed to gain a foothold in the repertoire. Other works Critics have praised smaller-scale works by Lyatoshynsky. They include Intermezzo from the Second String Quartet, op.4 (1922) orchestrated in the early 1960s, and the Lyric Poem (1964), an elegy written in memory of Glière. The orchestrated version of the Intermezzo, which according to the British classical music journalist Michael Oliver consists of "delicate melodies floating over a gently rocking pulse", is praised by him as being "magical". Impressionistic touches in Lyatoshynsky's smaller-scale works can be seen in the second and fifth of his Reflections, where he uses the tone quality of instruments,