By now firmly established in a single-movement idiom, Langgaard marked the end of the first phase of his symphonic development with a powerful and apocalyptic fourth symphony. The progression from Strauss and Wagner is marked and the orchestration, style, texture and content of this work are markedly Mahlerian. There is an episode of bell-like woodwind writing towards the end of the symphony, in a section marked "Sunday morning—the bells" which sounds infinitely more modern than anything else he had written to that point. This helps to point the way to the intensely chromatic harmonies that will feature in the next phase of the cycle of symphonies and major orchestral works. A revision in 1920 cut a great deal of thematic material from the work and shortened it considerably.

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