From the Preface. No book, so far as I have been able to discover, exists in the English language on the History of the Symphony. There is one work in French, Brenet's Histoire de la Symphonie a Orchestre (see Bibliography). This is not well known in this country; it has few actual musical quotations, deals more especially with early French composers, and ends with Beethoven. Weingartner's Symphony Writers since Beethoven carries on the story up to recent times, but more prominence is given in this to German compositions than to the equally, if not more, important works of the Russian and other schools. The nearest approach to a complete work on the subject is Sir Hubert Parry's masterly article in Grove's Dictionary , which treats exhaustively of the history of the symphony up to the time of Brahms. But in this, again, more modern composers obtain but slight consideration. The present book is an attempt to put before the reader all that is important in the story of the symphony, from the earliest examples of the form to the present day. Its rise and development are traced briefly, but, I hope, as adequately as the limits of the book allow. Many musical quotations are given, not only from the older, but also from the more recent composers, and a (necessarily) short account of the works of present-day writers is included. Some comment may be aroused by the comparatively extended analysis given to the symphonies of Beethoven, seeing that so much literature on the subject already exists….