The work remained unpublished for many years until 1984 when a set of parts turned up in a warehouse in England.
He received critical acclaim for his early compositions including the Overture to the School for Scandal and Adagio for Strings.
His early success led to a commission from the United States Air Force in 1943 to write a "symphonic work about flyers".
Barber spent time at a U.S. Air Force base so that he could take part in flight training and battle simulations.
[2] General Barton K. Yount approached Samuel Barber about the commission and asked him to include "modern devices" in the composition.
Barber honored this request by using an electronic tone-generator built by Bell Telephone Laboratories in the second movement.
Serge Koussevitzky conducted the premiere performance at Symphony Hall in Boston, MA.
However, after twenty years with infrequent performances, he decided that the symphony was, in his words, "not a good work".
The parts were returned to New York where they were used for a recording by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra with Andrew Schenck conducting.
The final movement begins with very fast string passages with no barlines to express the sensation of flight.
The movement opens with aggressive woodwind chords in seconds that move at the interval of a seventh.
The development begins with a contrapuntal passage that leads into a full orchestra statement based on the opening motif.
The piece, which tries to emulate a flier at night, is based on a slow ostinato 5/4 rhythm that is first played by the muted cellos and basses.
[12] The juxtaposition of time signatures creates an oscillating rhythmic counterpoint that helps propel the movement forward.
The final movement begins with a spiral figure for the strings in free rhythm that is interrupted by the brass section.
This coupling was again reissued in 1970 on Everest Records, and in 1965 a new pairing of the symphony with Barber's Concerto for Cello and Orchestra, conducted by Barber with the same orchestra and Zara Nelsova, cello, was issued in London on the Ace of Clubs imprint of Decca Records.