[1] It is in four movements:[2] The symphony is dedicated "To the Memory of Franklin Delano Roosevelt", who died while Sessions was composing the Adagio tranquillo.
[2] The score is dated "Princeton-Gambier-Berkeley, 1944–46" – it was begun in Princeton, work continued at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, and finished at the University of California at Berkeley.
Though the work was originally commissioned by the Ditson Fund of Columbia University,[2] the premiere, under Pierre Monteux and the San Francisco Symphony, took place 9–11 January 1947.
[2][4] This performance was not well received, and reviewer Marjory M. Fisher opined that "it seemed to express the epitome of all that is worst in the life and thinking of today.
The subject of tonality is complex and even problematical nowadays, and if I use terms which I myself find inadequate to the facts of contemporary music, it is because they express certain essentials more satisfactorily than any others I know.