40, is the only symphony by 20th-century Austrian composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold, although as a teenager in 1912 he had written a Sinfonietta, his Op.
The symphony was completed in 1952 and dedicated to the memory of American president Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had died seven years earlier.
The work's premiere on Austrian radio on October 17, 1954, by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra under Harold Byrns was described as "poorly rehearsed and performed.
Then Mitropoulos's death intervened, and in fact the symphony did not enjoy its first concert outing until November 27, 1972, in Munich under Rudolf Kempe.
More recently the work has entered the repertoire with a number of CD recordings,[3] and the score has been published by Schott Musik in their Eulenburg Series.