In listening to Chadwick's Second Symphony there is a pentatonic motive on the horn, which recurrs throughout the work. This and a rather American flair to the melodies throughout suggest that this was one of those works which appeared to follow the example of Dvorák's New World Symphony. Actually, the Chadwick was written in 1884, about a decade before Dvorák's.

This work contains all the elements of Chadwick's mature style, which is a European conservatory-based one, open to American musical influences, which include folk music built on Scots-Irish roots, the New England style of hymnody, and African-American elements. Chadwick also had a sly, rather Haydnesque sense of musical humor manifesting itself in unexpected formal twists, especially in the final moments of the work. Chadwick shows a mastery of the standard nineteenth century orchestra; the work is scored with transparency and imaginative colors within the traditional bounds of the German symphonic style of about that time. It shows a little Wagnerian influence in harmonic usage, but not in rhetoric. It stands comparison with much of the work being done by orchestral composers in Europe at about the same time.

© Joseph Stevenson, All Music Guide