Symphony no. 4, version 1 - 1948-1952, version 2 - 1972.

Palester began working on Fourth as soon as he completed his previous symphony. In his letter to Tadeusz Ochlewski dated 5 May 1948 from Paris he wrote that "the sketch of the Fourth is ready". Yet it took Palester several years to complete the score. Eventually the Symphony no. 4 was performed in Brussels on 24 October 1952 cunducted by Franz André. In that initial version it was a one-movementpiece. The first Polish performance was given six years after the Brussels premiere. The composition was presented at the Warsaw Autumn Festival on 2 October 1958 with Stanisław Skrowaczewski as the conductor. 20 years later the composer revised his work thoroughly. In its final version from 1972 the Fourth Symphony lasts half an hour (ten minutes longer than the original) and consists of five segments, distinct though played attacca. This new version was performed by Stanisław Skrowaczewski in Minneapolis on 19 April 1973.

The Fourth Symphony is representative of Palester’s new language that he developed in the post-war period. It is a combination of near expressionism with freely applied elements of dodecaphony, respecting, however, the classical rules of composition. The work was intended to combine the sonata allegro principle with the structure of four-movement symphonic cycle.