The symphonic careers of Johannes Brahms and Bohuslav Martinů have more in common than the late appearance of a First Symphony. Once the initial hurdle had been overcome, each man was able to write his Second Symphony only a year or so later, producing a work substantially different in character and substance. Indeed, the First Symphonies of both Brahms and Martinů stand apart not only by virtue of their length, but because they adopt ambitious, unorthodox formal designs. The Second Symphonies are comparatively genial works with more straightforward formal structures which exercise a much stricter motivic control over their material. The treatment of the orchestra is also noticeably different: Brahms is more indulgent, using trombones and tuba in three of the four movements, whereas in the First Symphony he had reserved them for the finale. Martinů adjusted his orchestration in the opposite direction, not by reducing the size of the orchestra, but by favouring the alternation of smaller groups within it. Only the contrabassoon and cor anglais from the First Symphony are dropped (the latter replaced by a third oboe) and two, rather than three, percussionists are required in addition to the timpanist. The writing for strings is crisper, with the luxuriant division into multiple parts nowhere to be found. Thanks to these adjustments, the sound world of the Second Symphony is much leaner. It is also the slenderest of the symphonies, lasting under 25 minutes in performance.

Martinů made it clear in his post-war reminiscences that some of the ideas for the Second Symphony (H295) had occurred to him while he was writing the First, a surprising circumstance given the clear contrast between them: