Each movement is named after the six sections of Auden's poem, trying to mirror the moods and events in the poem. Structurally, there are two parts, each comprising three sections. The symphony is composed for an orchestra containing 2 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, 2 harps, celesta, pianino (upright piano), strings, and solo piano. The work was dedicated to and commissioned by Serge Koussevitzky who was preparing to end his 25-year career conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Dissatisfied with the ending of the composition, Bernstein revised it in 1965 to firmly establish his idea for the true ending. He completed the piece on Main New York City. When beginning to write the piece, Bernstein stated that Auden's poem was "one of the most shattering examples of pure virtuosity in the history of English poetry" and that a "composition of a symphony based on The Age of Anxiety acquired an almost compulsive quality." After Auden's "The Age of Anxiety" won the Pulitzer Prize in 1948, Bernstein praised it, saying "When I first read the book I was breathless." Bernstein worked on the composition "in Taos, Philadelphia, Richmond, Mass., in Tel-Aviv, in planes, in hotel lobbies." Though called a symphony, "The Age of Anxiety" does not follow the traditional symphonic form: instead of a conventional four-movement, exclusively orchestral work, Bernstein scored it for solo piano and orchestra, and divided the piece into six subsections – mirroring Auden’s text – split equally into two parts that are performed without pause. I would rather have 'it' in the concert hall, where it can be less 'handled' than in the ballet school where many different talents brush it up. You mentioned it being good ballet material, yes, but I think, first, it should be composed as music by itself and therefore protect it from being too obvious program music, and then if some clever choreographer can put the musical composition to work, with what added quality good music may give to the themes and material, well and good. What do you think of the 'Anxiety' idea? There is so much musical-subtlety in it, and those various metres brought about by the different roads the couples take and their differing means of transportation, to say nothing of the moods, and the separateness that becomes Oneness under alcohol and/or libidinal urges. A friend is claimed to have given Bernstein the idea to write music based on The Age of Anxiety in a letter:
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