Samuel Barber's First Essay for Orchestra (1938), along with his extremely well-known Adagio for Strings of the same year, brought Barber worldwide recognition after being premiered by maestro Arturo Toscanini and the New York Symphony Orchestra on November 5, 1938. Toscanini was known for not championing the composers of the time or American composers and their works. Yet, in Barber, he heard music that matched the beauty and emotion of previous masters.

Barber, along with Gian Carlo Menotti, a fellow composer and lifelong friend, visited Toscanini for the first time approximately five years before the famous premiere concert. Here, Toscanini informed Barber that he intended to conduct one of his works. In spring of 1938, Barber sent to Toscanini the score for the First Essay for Orchestra along with the Adagio for Strings, hoping that one of them would be chosen for performance. Within months, Toscanini returned the scores to Barber. Toscanini included no comments about the works or plans for performance. Barber was bothered by this and did not visit Toscanini that summer as scheduled. Menotti did visit, though, and here Toscanini informed him that he intended to conduct both of Barber's compositions.

The form of this piece was inspired by the essay of the literary world. In the written essay, one main idea is presented at the beginning and then expanded upon. The brevity of the essay form and its focus upon a single idea attracted Barber. He first experimented with his derived essay form for music in his Three Essays for Piano (1926).

The first section of the Essay for orchestra No. 1 has an elegiac character. The strings begin in a somber mood. The intensity increases toward a first climax and then descends to a desolate fanfare followed by a restatement of the first theme. A scherzo-like section follows in which the rhythm of the lower piano strings plays a prominent part. The tension mounts to reach an intense climax that winds down amidst murmurations of the piano. A new crescendo brings a powerful restatement of the initial theme. Then the music dies out to the lament of distant trumpets.

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