In his account of the «second age of the symphony» James Hepokoski (2002) classifies the orchestral compositions of British composers Charles Villiers Stanford and Hubert Parry as «nationalistic» works that exoticise, but otherwise uphold, Austro-German models. This perpetuates the traditional view of a nineteenth-century British symphonic tradition failing to uphold the criterion of originality central to nationalism and to the symphony’s «second age» generally. Closer scrutiny of the symphonies of Stanford and Parry reveals complex syntheses of traditionalistic and modernistic strains: both composers negotiated the conflicting imperatives of experimentation, originality and linguistic approachability that confronted the full range of symphonists of all nations – including Franz Liszt. Several of Stanford’s symphonies contain programmatic elements and inter-movemental, “cyclical” processes that evoke the compositions of Liszt. The limited and controversial dissemination of Liszt’s orchestral music in later nineteenth-century Britain, coupled with blatant differences in stylistic orientation, obscures any path of influence running directly from Liszt to Stanford. Nonetheless, comparisons between Liszt and Stanford’s Fourth Symphony (originally prefaced by lines from Goethe’s Faust) and Sixth Symphony (a response to paintings and sculptures by George Frederick Watts) indicate that “modern” techniques inhered in works traditionally seen in a “reactionary” light. Such comparisons also point towards Liszt’s partial acceptance of traditional structuring principles, even in such apparently iconoclastic works as the Faust Symphony.