Paul Creston (born Giuseppe Guttoveggio in New York and long a church organist at St. Malachy's Church in that city) was one of the younger members of the generation of composers known as the "American Symphonists." These composers included Howard Hanson, Henry Cowell, Walter Piston, William Schuman, William Grant Still, David Diamond, and others who all wrote tonal music with an American melodic and rhythmic flavor. They created an American voice in an art form that many European commentators considered dead and outdated—the symphony. Unfortunately, the European attitude spread to America and created the illusion that this music was irrelevant. Creston, who retained his distinctive voice throughout his life (1906-1985), suffered comparative neglect.

Eugene Ormandy led the Philadelphia Orchestra in the first performance of this symphony on October 27, 1950 at Worcester, Massachusetts. It had been commissioned by the Worcester Music Festival in memory of Aldus C. Higgins.

The three Mysteries of the title are religious: The Mysteries of the Life of Christ, the Nativity, the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection, each of which is a subject of one of the three movements. The composer says that the symphony is not program music—the symphony supposedly does not tell the stories of these events, but instead is "a musical parallel of the inherent emotional reactions" to these key events of the Christian faith.

Gregorian chant plays a dominant part in the melodic material of the symphony. All the major themes are related to particular chants, though this relationship varies from near-quotation to no more than exerting influence of particular melodic lines.

The first movement, "The Nativity" (Lento; Allegro moderato), opens with stilled string sonorities that evoke the night. When the main body of the movement proper begin, the opening theme, based on an old Alleluia chant, is given to the horn. A second chant-derived theme appears in a serene contrasting section, given to the flute. The music turns dance-like, and later in the symphony perky and exotic oboes make it easy to ignore Creston's statement that the work does not engage in tonal story telling, for it seems to represent the arrivals of both the Shepherds and the Wise Men. A fugal section ends the movement, with the Alleluia theme rising majestically at its conclusion.

The second movement, "The Crucifixion" (Adagio) is, of course, tragic. It begins with a warm and expressive cello melody, but then the orchestra has a painful outburst. Then an ostinato treading figure becomes an anguished march, which must represent the Way of the Cross. Nevertheless, the movement ends in an atmosphere of spiritual calm, with the opening chant restated on ethereal high violin harmonics.

The finale is "The Resurrection" (Lento moderato; Allegro ma calmo). The expectant introduction to this movement is the work's nearest approach to literal quotation of a Gregorian melody, given first to the cellos and basses, then on the trumpet with rich harmonies in the horns. A celestial effect is added by harp figurations that take part in this texture.

The faster part of the movement is based on the Easter sequence Victimæ paschali laudes, a variant of which is given to a call and response type of texture between the woodwinds and the strings. The theme is broken into motives in murmuring strings in a passage that suggests to this writer a depiction of the breathless retelling of the news of the Resurrection as it spread's among Christ's followers. The violins keep up their excited commentary in the upper register as the chant theme is given a rich and glorious conclusion in the brass.

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