Arriaga died at the age of 19, and yet his output included an opera, cantatas, chamber, and orchestral works, and many shorter pieces. At 18—when this, his first and only symphony, was written—he was already an assistant professor at the Paris Conservatoire. This work shows no trace of youthful immaturity; indeed, the long, slow introduction has an almost Beethovenian authority and leads to an equally powerful faster section that sustains the mood of high seriousness. The sorrowful slow movement contains expressive writing for woodwind, and the flute also has an important part in the brief, syncopated minuet and trio. The final scherzo is far from being an anticlimax. Marked Allegro con moto, it has all the melodic and rhythmic drive of the earlier movements. Other echoes of the earlier movements include passages in minor keys casting chilling shadows over the musical narrative. The smoothly classical grace that marks many of Arriaga's other works is replaced in the symphony by music as dramatic and compelling as anything that followed it in early Romantic period.

© Roy Brewer, All Music Guide