It is in four movements: The symphony is scored for Piccolo,[2] 3 flutes, 2 oboes, cor anglais, 3 clarinets, 2 bassoons, double-bassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (tamtam), and strings.
Unlike Bruckner, Furtwängler makes smooth transitions into and out of the trio.
Roughly 80 minutes in length, the work is heavily indebted to the late-Romantic style of composers like Anton Bruckner and Richard Wagner.
[7] Arthur Honegger wrote of this work, "The man who can write a score as rich as [this] is not to be argued about.
There also exist several public recordings, some of them having been released : with the Hamburg Philharmonic in 1948 (Société Wilhelm Furtwängler), with the Orchestra of Hesse Radio in Frankfurt in 1952 (Wilhelm-Furtwängler-Gesellschaft), with the Vienna Philharmonic in 1953 (Orfeo) and with the South-German Radio Symphony Orchestra in Stuttgart in 1954 (Mediaphon).