thumb|Bohuslav Martinů in New York, around 1942, at the piano working on his second symphony A characteristic feature of his orchestral writing is the near-omnipresent piano; many of his orchestral works include a prominent part for piano, including his small Concerto for harpsichord and chamber orchestra. The bulk of his writing from the 1930s into the 1950s was in a neoclassical vein, but with his last works he opened up his style to include more rhapsodic gestures and a looser, more spontaneous sense of form. This is easiest to hear by comparing his Fantaisies symphoniques (Symphony No. 6), H 343, with its five predecessors, all from the 1940s.
thumb|Bohuslav Martinů in New York, around 1942, at the piano working on his second symphony A characteristic feature of his orchestral writing is the near-omnipresent piano; many of his orchestral works include a prominent part for piano including his small Concerto for harpsichord and chamber orchestra. The bulk of his writing from the 1930s into the 1950s was in a neoclassical vein, but with his last works he opened up his style to include more rhapsodic gestures and a looser, more spontaneous sense of form. This is easiest to hear by comparing his Fantaisies symphoniques (Symphony No. 6), H 343, with its five predecessors, all from the 1940s.