This fiery and dramatic work, which is at the same time both a symphony and a dazzling piano concerto, is one of the most often played and most important orchestral compositions of the immediate post-World War II period.

After his sensational debuts of the 1943-1944 season (as a last-minute replacement at the New York Philharmonic, and as a Broadway, ballet, and symphony composer), Leonard Bernstein's biggest professional problem was how to balance his triple-threat talents as pianist, composer, and conductor—he could have had a splendid full-time career as any one of the three. As a "serious" composer Bernstein was preoccupied with questions concerning the emptiness of modern life, particularly among disaffected middle-class Americans. The loss of and search for personal and spiritual meaning is a theme in his music as recurrent and important as Benjamin Britten's well-known preoccupation with the subject of the loss of innocence.

W.H. Auden's long poem "The Age of Anxiety" addresses Bernstein's theme so strongly that one almost suspects the poem defined certain ideas for Bernstein in artistic terms. The poem is a narrative that follows a woman and three men, all lonely, who meet in a bar and form a drinking friendship for that night because of their common insecurities and needs. They party (if one can use the word for their desperate search for what one of them calls the "colossal Dad"—no less than a central meaning for life) through the night.

Bernstein wrote the piece while pursuing his increasingly hectic conducting career. The work was written in airplanes and hotels around the world, including the historic year of 1948, while he was in Palestine as it became Israel and immediately was attacked by all its neighbors.

The symphony is in a unique two-movement form, all instrumental but programmatically following the stages of Auden's poem fairly closely. The first movement begins with a Prologue, followed by a large set of 14 variations on it, grouped into two seven-part sections called "The Seven Ages" and "The Seven Stages." This is a serious and dramatic discourse.

Part Two is itself in three parts. "The Dirge," the work's slow movement, depicts the group's cab ride to the woman's apartment for a nightcap. The eclectic Bernstein bases this part on a 12-tone row, letting atonal music depict both their emotional low point and (when it suddenly turns lush and romantic) suggest what they are lacking. In "The Masque" (the scherzo of the piece) the orchestra drops out except for the percussion and the piano, which suddenly plays white-hot piano jazz, including a blues theme Bernstein had written earlier. After a sudden four-measure outburst from the jazz "audience," the jazz music jumps offstage to an upright piano. The party is over. The guests have gone home.

A slow Epilogue (originally without piano but rewritten because potential soloists hated having to sit the last four minutes on stage without playing) ponders the lessons of the night, and seems to find the way to faith and meaning.

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