Although Rawsthorne, an important British composer, made a highly successful orchestral debut with "Symphonic Studies" of 1938, he did not write a symphony until 1950, when he was forty-five years old. It was quickly acclaimed of one of the most important works by this important composer, who had a very individual style.

The symphony tends to be orchestrated in blocks of tone based on the major families of the orchestra, using a standard large orchestra. It tends to be rhythmically vigorous.

Rawsthorne uses his typical style here. Key ingredients of it are an opening motto (in this case a sinuous series of notes in small intervals: F, G, E, D, E flat. This sets up a second primary element of Rawsthorne's style, quick motion from one tonality to another (rather than outright atonality). In this case, there is also an ambiguity between E and E flat.

The first movement is mostly devoted to that tonal ambiguity. A rather aggressive section leads to the core of the movement, a lyrical section, with lovely contrapuntal movement between cellos and violas. The movement builds into a final climax, which is allowed to fade away with only a hint of the opening motive; the tonality is still left ambiguous.

The slow movement contrasts a melodic version of the five-note motto, a faster middle section with scurrying string figures and bright brass. The ending section is a recurrence of the opening melody, but now played in overlapping fashion (i.e., in canon) by oboe and clarinet.

The scherzo is a tour de force of orchestration. It is like a single thought, pursued seamlessly, and is less tonally ambiguous than the rest (although the symphony's basic tension of E/E flat is still tantalizingly unsettled). The striking thing about it is that it is quiet and lightly orchestrated throughout.

The finale starts with violent sounds in the orchestra. It is in a fast three-beat tempo and starts out with an overbearing, even coarse. The movement is mainly an alternation of quiet sections and recurrences of the opening outburst. The last of these resolves the issue of the work's tonality into E Major. However, in a magical coda, Rawsthorne recalls, as if in nostalgia for the E flat-ness of the piece, which is allowed to re-emerge, as it were, in the distance.

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