Ralph Vaughan Williams's Symphony No. 8 in D minor was composed between 1953 and 1955. Sir John Barbirolli, its dedicatee, conducted the Hallé Orchestra in the premiere at the Kings Hall in Manchester, on 2 May 1956. It is the shortest of the composer's nine symphonies, and is mostly buoyant and optimistic in tone.

The Manchester Guardian reported after the premiere, "It is not often that the entire audience in an English concert hall gets on its feet to cheer, particularly after a new work", and the Eighth has remained one of the composer's most popular symphonies. In 2008, the music critic of The Times wrote, "With its witty variations in search of a theme, its sparky scherzo and its toybox of a toccata, the symphony sounds like the work of a young man at the height of his powers".

After the US premiere, the critic Edwin H. Schloss called the symphony "a work of stimulating originality – music of a freshness, exuberance and warmth", the scherzo "pert, garrulous and brimming with delightful humor" and the cavatina "music of great lyric loveliness". Schloss reported that the work was greeted "with a torrent of applause".When Ormandy and the orchestra took the work to New York Douglas Watt found it "sunny, lively, expertly tailored and winning". The New York Music Critics' Circle named the piece as the best new symphony of the year. Reviewing the first recording to be issued of the work the critic Harold C. Schonberg concluded that Vaughan Williams "could well be today's major symphonist".

Among assessments in the 21st century, Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2001) says of the piece:
The Eighth, in D minor, has a comparative lightness of heart and a capacity for humour, but these qualities are shot through with sadness and anxiety, even in the rumbustious finale; melodic allusions to Holst and Bach suggest that a thread of remembrance for the fallen of World War I, and for absent friends in general, runs through the work.