Krenek, then in his twenty-second year, met and fell in love with Anna Mahler, daughter of the famous composer, in February, 1922. Around then the successful premiere of his Symphony No. 1 stimulated him to write this immense (65-minute) symphony in an incredibly short eight weeks. The composer dedicated it to Anna. They were married in 1924, but the union lasted only a short time. In this symphony Krenek comes as close as he ever did to the style of Mahler. There are certain relationships between this work and Mahler's unfinished Symphony No. 10 (the first movement of which Krenek later edited), but it is not known whether Krenek knew the Mahler symphony at this time.

Years later Krenek described the work as his "Tragic" symphony, pointing to its "fateful conflict of opposed principles." The slow introduction suggests a sunrise scene in the mountains, with the profiles of the peaks emerging from the brightening haze. The work contains a simple tune on horns that Krenek identifies as the "human element," but in this movement it appears much less prominently than in the others. The main body of the movement combines the role of exposition and development. It pits two main "Nature" themes against the "human element." With three powerful waves the natural elements introduce a coda in which the opening material is revisited. The second movement is a powerful and often wild scherzo, about half the length of the flanking twenty-five-minute outer movements. Again the human element is inarticulate and overwhelmed by Nature. The main body of the third movement, though, is an eloquent Adagio in which the human element predominates, although it is broken into several times by the elemental themes. The final climax of the symphony unites nearly all the main material. Technically, this is highly dissonant music, but it paradoxically creates an impression of resolution on a higher plane.

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