Sibelius completed his First Symphony in 1899, after a series of earlier symphonic poems, in which he had shown his mastery of orchestration and his tendency, as a violinist and a conductor, to think in orchestral terms. His ability as a pianist was limited, a fact demonstrated in his generally less satisfactory writing for the keyboard, although ideas would occur to him as he improvised at the piano. The first performance of the symphony was given in Helsinki in April 1899 under the direction of the composer in a concert that included his new Song of the Athenians, the text taken from a poem by Viktor Rydberg, a work that was an immediate response to the Russianizing policies of the Governor-General Bobrikov, who was later assassinated by a Finnish patriot. The choral work was received with enthusiasm and the symphony equally welcomed, although attempts to seek a programme for it where immediately made by critics accustomed to the earlier overtly programmatic tone poems.
Sibelius made sketches for his Sixth Symphony while at work on the Fifth, which he followed with a group of Humoresques for violin and orchestra and smaller pieces. The new symphony was completed in 1923 and first performed in Helsinki in April, followed by performances in Stockholm and Gothenburg. He had planned a work wild and passionate, with pastoral contrasts and a stormy finale. The symphony opens with a long-drawn Dorian melody from the strings, in a movement that might once have been envisaged as part of a new violin concerto, which he had unsuccessfully proposed to his publishers Breitkopf and Hartel. The thematic material remains predominantly modal as the music unfolds. This leads abruptly enough to a second movement of gentle mystery, apparently simple in its material and seeming to draw something of its inspiration from the countryside of Finland. The symphony ends with a movement that has its moments of tempest before the simplicity of a melody proposed by the strings, a reminiscence of the runic melodies to which the verses of the Kalevala were traditionally sung, although something more momentous grows from this material, before the wistful conclusion.
