Having insufficient rehearsal time, the premiere took place only nine days later, conducted by the composer himself at the music society Musikforening in Copenhagen.

[4] Its fragmented nature,[5] unpredictable character[5] and sudden synchronization at the ending[6] also point towards a self-conscious modernist aesthetic, though as in most of Nielsen's early and middle works, non-modernist devices, including organicism and diatonicism, play some essential roles.

Nielsen explained jokingly in an interview that it was not difficult to write the first three movements of a symphony but by the finale most composers had run out of ideas.

[12] The first movement climaxes in a battle between the orchestra and a renegade snare-drummer, who can only be silenced by the full forces of his colleagues in the final bars.

The second movement continues the struggle with shivers of anxiety, building through repetitions and detours to the final victorious grand explosion.

[12][13] The first movement begins with violas softly oscillating between the C and A notes; after four bars of the single, minimally-inflected line, a pair of bassoons enters with the initial theme.

[14] The beginning has been described by Nielsen scholar Robert Simpson as like being "in outer space"; the subsequent wave-like line "appears from nowhere, as if one were suddenly made aware of time as a dimension".

[18] While the monotonous rhythm of snare drum continues, violins respond tortuously, only to be overwhelmed by the mood of the "savage and destructively egotistical" (Simpson's description) clarinet and flute.

[22] An oboe triplet figure then reveals the warm theme in G major of the Adagio non troppo section, a contrast to the prior cold landscape.

[25] When all subsides, echoes in woodwinds are heard and a solitary clarinet is left to mourn in a tragic atmosphere, recapturing ideas from the whole movement:[26] "Who would have thought that so much could have come out of a gently waving viola line in empty space?

[11] In a statement to one of his students, Ludvig Dolleris, Nielsen described the symphony as "the division of dark and light, the battle between evil and good" and the opposition between "Dreams and Deeds".

Finally the evil has to give way, a last attempt and then it flees – and with a strophe thereafter in consoling major mode a solo clarinet ends this large idyll-movement, an expression of vegetative (idle, thoughtless) Nature.

[3] Victor Bendix, a long-time supporter and friend, wrote to Nielsen the day after the premiere, calling the work a "Sinfonie filmatique, this dirty trenches-music, this impudent fraud, this clenched fist in the face of a defenceless, novelty-snobbish, titillation-sick public, commonplace people en masse, who lovingly lick the hand stained with their own noses' blood!

"[3] A Swedish performance on 20 January 1924, under the baton of Georg Schnéevoigt, caused quite a scandal; the Berlingske Tidende reported that some in the audience could not take the modernism of the work: Midway through the first part with its rattling drums and 'cacophonous' effects a genuine panic broke out.

Around a quarter of the audience rushed for the exits with confusion and anger written over their faces, and those who remained tried to hiss down the 'spectacle', while the conductor Georg Schnéevoigt drove the orchestra to extremes of volume.

His representation of modern life with its confusion, brutality and struggle, all the uncontrolled shouts of pain and ignorance—and behind it all the side drum's harsh rhythm as the only disciplining force—as the public fled, made a touch of almost diabolic humour.