The composer Robert Simpson regarded Rachmaninoff's First Symphony as much superior to the two that followed it, feeling that it had been created "naturally and without strain" on the whole[REF] and with all four of its movements "thematically genuinely integrated."[REF]
Rachmaninoff biographer Max Harrison writes, "The most original element in this work comes from a network of motivic relationships,"[REF] adding that while the composer had employed this network in his Caprice Bohémien, he takes its use still further in the symphony.