Considering this, the work has remarkable technical and structural assurance, and a profound emotional core which is quite astonishing coming from young composer so early on in his career.
Sir Adrian Boult saw the score of the symphony soon after its completion in 1957, and these traits were clearly evident to him as the symphony made such an impression upon the great conductor that he decided to give the work a private performance later that year with the London Philharmonic Orchestra in St. Pancras Town Hall, London.
[1] Williamson had recently moved to London from Sydney, Australia when he wrote Elevamini, and had quickly become close friends with many of the leading musicians and composers of the day, such as Benjamin Britten, Richard Rodney Bennett, Sir Adrian Boult, Elisabeth Lutyens, Erwin Stein and Yehudi Menuhin.
1 - Elevamini has many detectable homages to Messiaen and Stravinsky incorporated within Williamson's very personal musical language.
[2] The symphony itself it built around a tone-row (indicating Schoenberg's influence), consisting of the notes A-flat, G, B-flat, E-flat, F, F-sharp, C, and D. From this tone-row, most of the symphony's material is derived in some way or another, such as the dissonant opening chords or the 'trio' section in the middle movement, scherzo.