[1][2][3] The piece has a duration of approximately 22 minutes and is composed in four movements: To compose the work, Carter split the orchestra into four harmonically juxtaposing sections designated by musical range: high, middle-high, middle-low, and low.
The cellist Fred Sherry (who performed the first recording of Carter's Cello Concerto) described the Concerto for Orchestra as one of three Carter pieces he would "recommend to every music lover", including A Symphony of Three Orchestras and Symphonia: sum fluxae pretium spei.
[5] Tom Service of The Guardian similarly praised the work as "an incandescent blaze of musical poetry.
"[4] David Patrick Stearns of The Philadelphia Inquirer described his first experience with the piece (and of Carter's music), writing, "My own journey with Carter began in the late 1990s with a recording of his Concerto for Orchestra, often thought to be one of his difficult works.
Then I realized that all his music required was the kind of keen attention you'd give to driving down the Brooklyn–Queens Expressway.