This is the text of Rubbra's spoken introduction before the BBC Home Service broadcast of the première of his Fourth Symphony, Henry Wood Promenade Concerts, London, 14 August 1942.

There's no programme attached to my Fourth Symphony; that is, it does not consciously illustrate subjective states, or seek to convey to the listener anything appertaining to the surrounding objective world. The listener may, if he wishes, translate the images of this symphonic world into those of the world of his everyday experience, and say, ‘Here the music is triumphant; there it is apprehensive; somewhere else it is carefree’, but to do so is, as it were, to bypass the centre of the music. The symphony is in the philosophical sense of the word a musical essence, rounded, complete and independent. In other words, it forms its own world; it is subject to its own laws and volition, and not in any sense illustrative of, or a commentary upon, the phenomena of everyday life.

Now a word as to the structure of the work. It consists of three movements (or four, if one considers the slow introduction to the finale as a slow movement, as in many respects it is), two big fifteen-minute movements sandwiching a five-minute intermezzo. This intermezzo, which is in waltz-time, takes the place of a scherzo, and is a very subdued and delicate one. This movement is designed to give mental relief and refreshment between two movements full of tension.