Agreed. Do composers reserve number 5 for their best ? I don't know Bruckner's fifth stacks up against these. I never heard it.
It might be a private “in joke”, among Classical Musicians, as the “Fifth” is a very important interval in music and resolves perfectly back to the root. It is known as a “Perfect Cadence” and the interval itself is known as a “Perfect Fifth”. The Diatonic Chord based on the Perfect Fifth is known as the DOMINANT!
OR I might be full of baloney! LOL
LOve ALL Three of the aforementioned Symphonies!
“...Do composers reserve number 5 for their best ?...”
Always been partial to the Beethoven 3rd, Shastakovich 5th, Tchaikovsky 4th, and Brahms 1st. Mahler wrote some of the juciest French Horn passages ever!
Happy Birthday Giovanni Punto!
Rachmaninov, Symphony 2, Adagio (III)