"My philosophical approach to composition," wrote Paul Creston, "is abstract. I am preoccupied with matters of melodic design, harmonic coloring, (and ) rhythmic pulse ... not with imitations of nature, or narrations of fairy tales..." Having thus taken a stance against a programmatic aesthetic, Creston backs up his words with abstract musings dressed up as music and the effect of these varies. In his fifth symphony, commissioned and written to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the National Symphoy Orchestra in Washington in 1956 when the composer was fifty, he has constructed a proper and logical work in three movements and to some extent its mathematical seams show. Again, in the composer's own words; "All thematic material (in this work) stems from the series of tones presented at the very beginning by the 'cellos and basses, evenly measured but irregularly grouped." A "germ" theme begins on a rising triad; its inversion, found in the second theme, is, of course, a descending triad. Spiritual stuff this is not. Still, on a musical level the piece succeeds with colorful and imaginative constructions and organizations and the listener is left with a satisfying experience more intellectual than emotional. As the product of a self-made, driven, and reportedly feisty man, Creston's music is demanding of the listener and occasionally savagely difficult to perform. The symphony is big and mostly abrupt and is more or less tightly packed into three movements which pass in something over twenty-five minutes. Of Creston's three stated parameters, its melodic design is mathematical, its harmonic coloring mostly conventional, and its rhythmic pulse jagged. It is thoroughly twentieth century American orchestral music, somewhat reminiscent of that of David Diamond and Walter Piston, though less formal, being the product of a largely self-taught composer.

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