About Symphony No. 6 - caught up in a process
Perhaps the most significant thing I have learned from studying Sibelius’ symphonies is the extent to which each of the works is really unique. At least, from the Second Symphony onwards they really present a tremendous variety. And in some way or other, I think, this is something that runs through my own approach to composing symphonies - I mean, that it can never be a question of sort of composing some kind of series.
I feel that each of my symphonies is like a whole self-contained continent, and as far as this goes my Sixth Symphony is a kind of flowing, ongoing process which cannot be divided into movements - I use the term passages, because the current that runs through them is such that, between the 1st and 2nd Passages, for example, there is what you might almost call a bridge, you hear nothing at all, there is simply a pause. But then, when the next passage begins, one discovers that the music in fact continues where it left off, slightly altered, perhaps. In other words, there is a flowing current, a form and a movement, something in the nature of a ... decisiveness which is not found at all in the Fifth Symphony, for example, which is far more explosive and chaotic in its unpredictability. This is the process which I simply became caught up in, I just had to reproduce that process. And it was certainly not one of the easiest things I have been faced with in my life. As for the rest - well, that's something I could keep on talking about for the next 50 years.
