The Symphony No. 4, H 305, was written in the spring of 1945 during the last months of World War II. He completed the score in June that same year. Martinů wrote the first three movements of the Symphony in New York and the last during the summer in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The Symphony is dedicated to Helen and William Ziegler, which is written on the title-page and in a note on the upper part of the first page of autograph. The Martinůs probably first met the Zieglers in 1943, when they spent the summer in Darien, Connecticut. They visited Helen and Bill Ziegler at their summer residence in the Darien area of Noroton and it was there that the idea for a new symphony arose. The work was officially commissioned by William Ziegler.
The Symphony was premiered on 30 November 1945 by The Philadelphia Orchestra conducted in Philadelphia by Eugene Ormandy. In Europe the work became known due to the efforts of Rafael Kubelík, who conducted the European premiere with the Czech Philharmonic in Prague on 10 October 1946, less than a year after premiere in Philadelphia. Kubelík then conducted the Symphony in other European cities and in Australia.
Although the symphony follows the “classical” division into four movements,17 the inner structure of the movements conforms more to the compositional techniques of late-nineteenth-century music, as pertains to both musical form and motivic development. This concept for the external and internal structure of the work was the result of the composer’s long path towards a distinctive compositional style.
Sharon Andrea Choa, The Bohuslav Martinů Complete Edition: Symphony No. 4, H 305, series II/1/4, Prague: Bärenreiter, 2014.