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 Arnold Bax’s Symphony No. 4, GP 307, was begun in October 1930 and completed in February 1931. Bax dedicated it to his friend from student days, Paul Corder. In contrast to the more inward character of the symphonies around it, Bax described this one in programmatic terms for the first time in the cycle, saying that its opening might suggest “a rough sea during flood on a sunny day.”

The symphony is in three movements: Allegro moderato; Lento moderato, with faster central and closing sections; and a final Allegro that moves through scherzando and more expansive passages. That shape gives the work a more direct, extrovert profile than Bax’s earlier symphonies, while still preserving his characteristic long-breathed, often episodic manner of argument.

It is often heard as one of Bax’s more outward-facing symphonies, with brighter orchestral colour and a stronger sense of motion than the first three. Bax himself later called it his “least interesting” symphony, but the work has usually been valued for its immediate energy, maritime atmosphere, and the way it anticipates the clearer textures and broader confidence of his later symphonic writing.