The symphony has been declared dead countless times over the past century. Nevertheless, Hans Werner Henze sought all his life to come to terms with symphonic form. On the occasion of his Symphony No. 8, he said: "I do not allow myself to be deterred from writing symphonies. I lay claim to this venue for addressing a large public in music, created especially for messages that go beyond the private. I won't let anyone steal it from me, even if modern cultural philosophy has declared this form dead - and perhaps precisely because it has."

Whereas his No. 7 - which "is the one that comes closest to the model of the classical symphony" - has a strong relation to Friedrich Hölderlin's life and torment, his No. 8 is a symphony based on Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream", "very light on it's feet and rich in melody" (Henze).