I'll have a try Dan
Sibelius was most certainly innovative, and this is one of his most innovative pieces (at least from what I've heard). For a start, the form is very different to the form of any symphony before it. It's all in one movement, but that movement is structured very very carefully to give the listener the same sort of experience as if they'd listened to a normal 4 movement symphony. There are a number of different sections, and three points of climax all of which employ the same theme in the trombones which I believe Michel posted earlier. Another innovative and interesting thing about this symphony is that almost all of it is developed from very little material - it is an extremely 'organic' work in that one can trace the melodic material in most of the different sections to one or several of the motifs/themes introduced in the first section (the section leading up to the first statement of the trombone theme). This creates a great sense of unity which holds the work together but the skill with which the material is manipulated and developed gives enough variety to keep the listener's interest.
It's true that this is much more rooted in tradiational harmony than a lot of other works that were being written at the same time - but is that a bad thing? There are some truley amazing and beautiful moments harmonically, and some points that sound decidedly not-common-practice, for example the work starts with an ascending A natural minor (A Aeolian) scale, which finishes on an Ab minor chord - a long way away from the home key in just the first few bars - it's not until quite a way in that we arrive in the home key of C major (sorry I can't give an exact bar reference, don't have a score
)
These are just my thoughts on it from having listened to it many times and tried to do a bit of analysis on the form myself - please do not take these as having any authority whatsoever - I could be talking complete shit
Anyway, I hope I've gone some way to explaining how innovative and original Sibelius's music was, and perhaps now you'll give it another listen with these things in mind and see if you can appreciate it a little more, gianluca
