This is an attractive, upbeat, and eclectic symphony. Its good melodies, lively rhythms, and consistent recourse to tonality make it attractive to listen throughout its 19 minutes, although its very diversity of influences tends to weaken it as a symphonic structure.

John Alden Carpenter soared to fame with his 1916 orchestral suite Adventures in a Perambulator. This work became so well-known that movie mogul Walt Disney decided to use it in a second version of his pioneer classical music film Fantasia, a project that quietly expired during World War II.

Carpenter (1876 - 1951), a lineal descendent of John and Priscilla Alden, a famous couple of the first Mayflower Pilgrims, grew up in a well-off mercantile family and spent his adult career running the family business along with his brothers. The shared responsibilities allowed him sufficient time off to be an active composer, and he attracted attention as early as 1910 for his sensitive song settings. Perambulator made him famous, and his more modernistic ballets Krazy Kat and Skyscrapers of the early 1920s earned him a reputation as a modernist, through in retrospect it is clear that it was the use of jazz harmonies and rhythms that got him that rap.

When classical music in general took on a more popular tone in the 1930s, Carpenter was pleased to return to and updated version of the Romanticism he had employed before Krazy Kat.

In 1934, Carpenter and his wife traveled to Algiers for a vacation. He chanced to hear a theme that became the main subject of the last movement of his next substantial work, a Piano Quintet he composed the same year. During 1941 and 1942 (following a successful revival in 1940 of his drastically revised First Symphony) Carpenter revised and orchestrated the quintet as his Symphony No. 2. In 1946 and 1947 he incorporated these revisions back into the quintet and added more revisions. Then in 1947 he made a new version of the symphony from the revised quintet and further revised it.

The shape of all four versions of this music is the same: Three movements, each a bit over six minutes long. The symphony's outer movements use the piano prominently in the orchestral texture, perhaps a remainder of its Piano Quintet origin.

The symphony begins Moderato with a dark, dissonant, and portentous opening, but this soon dissolves into a brisk and upbeat first movement. The musical style is similar to that of contemporary symphonic works by such composers as Howard Hanson: tonal, traditional in structure, though the dancing first movement is neither heroic nor sweepingly romantic. There is a distinct second subject, a flowing theme which provides the Romantic qualities, following a witty feint that pretends to be the second subject.

The second movement, Andante, is a sweet melody over a restless pulse, reminiscent of film music. The finale, Allegro, recaptures some of the brash jazz quality of Carpenter's '20s music. Fritz Busch premiered the symphony with the Chicago Symphony in 1949.

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