Prokofiev Symphony No. 5

It’s very easy to compare Sergei Prokofiev to Dmitri Shostakovich.
 They are the two most famous representatives of Soviet and
Russian music of the 20th century, they lived around the same time,
and their music even has some similarities, but at their core, you
almost couldn’t find more different people than Prokofiev and
Shostakovich.  Shostakovich was neurotic, nervous, and timid.
 Prokofiev was confident and cool.  Shostakovich was
tortured by the Soviet government, and while Prokofiev certainly
had his runins with Stalin and his crones , his life wasn’t so
inextricably linked to the Soviet Union, besides the fact that he
had the bad luck to die on the same day as Joseph Stalin, which
made it so that there were no flowers available for his funeral.
Prokofiev was able to travel, and see the world, generally without
nearly as much interference as Shostakovich faced.  These two
lives are reflected in two very different musical approaches. 
Shostakovich's wartime symphonies are full of terror and violence,
whlie Prokofiev wrote that his 5th symphony was a hymn to the human
spirit. We don't know how much that reflects his true feelings, but
its undeniable that there is a certain "optimism" to this symphony
that both thrills and unsettles listeners to this day. It is also
filled with traademark Prokofiev cynicism and sarcasm, and so we
are left, as always, with a contradiction. What did Prokofiev mean
with this symphony? Join us as we try to find out!