Abstract: This article examines the relevant issue pertaining to Russian, European, and world practice of using the musicological notion of “symphonic music”. The author notes the differences in the versions and peculiarities of interpretations of the term “symphonic music” in both, literature of strictly musicological profile, as well as within the broader culturological discourse. The author determines and analyzes the level of aesthetical, semantic and referential correlation between symphonic music and performing attributes of symphonic orchestra. The article presents multiple example of musical works that although attributed to the symphonic music, are in no way substantiated by the specificity or the expressive means and capabilities of symphonic orchestra. In the process of locating the various musicological aspects of the notion “symphonic music”, the author gives its adequate etymological and cultural-historical correlation with the core lexeme “symphony”. The author reveals the key and “cementing” role of constructive category of “symphonism” in this process. It is stated that the “symphonicity of the form” of musical works is determined not by some established “canonical” schemes, but by a complex internal organization of their musical texture, which is linked, first and foremost, with the continuity of development and overall process of the formation.