Praised upon its premiere as "the finest evocation of the sea ... ever ... produced in music", the tone poem, in D major, consists of two subjects, said to represent the playful activity of the nymphs and the majesty of the ocean, respectively.

Others have countered that Sibelius's active development of the two subjects, his sparing use of scales favored by Impressionists, and his prioritization of action and structure over ephemeral, atmospheric background distinguish the piece from quintessential examples, such as Debussy's La mer.

1 lost); and the second, the initial single-movement "Yale" version of the tone poem, in D♭ major, which Sibelius dispatched to America in advance of his journey but revised prior to the music festival.

The suite and Yale version, never performed in the composer's lifetime, received their world premieres by Osmo Vänskä and the Lahti Symphony Orchestra on 10 September and 24 October 2002, respectively.

[2][3] Despite his ongoing struggles with another commission, incidental music to Poul Knudsen's tragic ballet-pantomime Scaramouche,[4] Sibelius accepted the Stoeckel offer, writing in his diary, "A symphonic poem, ready by April".

[3] A trip to Berlin in January 1914 followed, and Sibelius's diary and correspondence indicate the Stoeckel commission was at the forefront of his mind; an initial plan to set Rydberg's poem Fantasos and Sulamit subsequently was discarded.

[6][n 2] At some point in 1913–14, Sibelius decided to rework the thematic material of the Allegro, very much a "work in progress",[7] into a single-movement symphonic poem; the musical content of the Tempo moderato would find its way into the piano piece Till trånaden (To Longing), JS 202.

In making the transition from suite to tone poem, Sibelius transposed the material from E♭ to D♭ major; in addition, he also introduced new musical ideas, such as the rocking wave-like motif in the strings and woodwinds, and expanded the orchestration.

[8] Although he already had sent the manuscript to Norfolk, Sibelius was not satisfied with the score and immediately began to revise the piece, eventually opting for a complete overhaul ("Isn't it just like me to rework the tone poem—at the moment I am ablaze with it.").

[11]Sibelius continued to make changes to the final version of the tone poem as he sailed across the Atlantic Ocean aboard the steamship SS Kaiser Wilhelm II and even during rehearsals in Norfolk, but these last-minute changes, Andrew Barnett argues, must have been relatively "minor", as the orchestral parts had been copied before his departure from Finland.

[10] Neither the suite nor the Yale version of the tone poem was performed in Sibelius's lifetime, receiving their world premieres by Osmo Vänskä and the Lahti Symphony Orchestra on 19 September and 24 October 2002, respectively.

[20] In preparation for the publication of the tone poem by Breitkopf & Härtel in June 1915, Sibelius included alongside the Finnish title, Aallottaret, an "explanatory" German translation, Die Okeaniden (in English: The Oceanides).

[21] The tone poem premiered on 4 June 1914 at "The Shed" concert hall of the Norfolk Music Festival, Sibelius himself conducting at a podium decorated in the American and Finnish national colors.

[24] The festival public sounded a similarly positive note about the new piece, which concluded a concert of Sibelius's music that included Pohjola's Daughter, the King Christian II Suite, The Swan of Tuonela, Finlandia, and Valse triste.

Stoeckel recounts the events of 4 June: Everyone who was fortunate enough to be in the audience agreed that it was the musical event of their lives, and after the performance of the last number there was an ovation to the composer which I have never seen equalled anywhere, the entire audience rose to their feet and shouted with enthusiasm, and probably the calmest man in the whole hall was the composer himself; he bowed repeatedly with that distinction of manner which was so typical of him ... As calm as Sibelius had appeared on the stage, after his part was over he came up stairs and sank into a chair in one of the dressing rooms and was very much overcome.

[25]Upon conclusion of the second half of the program (which featured Dvořák's Ninth Symphony, Coleridge-Taylor's rhapsody From the Prairie, and the overture to Wagner's opera Die Feen), the orchestra performed the Finnish national anthem, Vårt Land.

His response was to retreat into near solitude: he abstained from attending and giving concerts and neglected his circle of friends, and he imagined himself "forgotten and ignored, a lonely beacon of light in a deepening winter darkness".

[32] The 24 March program retained The Oceanides, but paired it with Scènes historiques I, the Nocturne from the King Christian II Suite, a movement from Rakastava, Lemminkäinen's Return, and the Fourth Symphony.

The "lively" A section (in duple meter), first introduced by the flutes at the beginning of the piece, can be said to represent the playful activity of the nymphs:[38][39] Shortly after, solo oboe and clarinet—supported by harp glissandi and strings—introduce the "majestic" B section (in triple meter), which brings to mind the ocean's depth and expansiveness and perhaps, at least according to Tawaststjerna, "the God of the Sea himself":[38][39] Sibelius gradually expands and deepens the two subjects, building up to an enormous (almost onomatopoeic) wave-crash climax that Daniel Grimley has characterized as a "point of textural, dynamic and chromatic saturation".

[40] Formally stated by Tawaststjerna, the tone poem structurally proceeds as follows: Grimley interprets the piece as progressing through "a series of three generative, wave-like cycles",[40] perhaps best described as placid ocean (A–B), gathering storm (A1–B1), and wave-crash climax (C–A).

David Hurwitz views the structure of the piece similarly to Tawaststjerna, albeit as A–B–A–B–Coda(B–A), which he terms "sonata form without development",[39] while Robert Layton considers The Oceanides "something ... of a free rondo", due to the continued reappearance of the opening flute theme (A).

[42] An unsigned review in the New-York Tribune (almost certainly penned by critic Henry Krehbiel) found the new work "fresh and vital, full of imagination and strong in climax".

[47] The Finnish critic Karl Wasenius (aka BIS), writing in Hufvudstadsbladet after the birthday celebration performances of 1915, wrote approvingly of Sibelius's "refined mastery" of technique.

[49] Cecil Gray, moreover, calls the piece "daring" and applauds the score's "exceptional complexity and refinement", challenging critics who see Sibelius as a "primitive artist".

Guy Rickards describes the tone poem as an "extraordinary score", magnificent yet subtle in its depiction of the sea's various moods, but nonetheless "music suffused by light",[51] while Robert Layton sees the piece as "far more ambitious and highly organized in design" than its immediate predecessor, The Bard.

[52] Tawaststjerna notes Sibelius's success at characterizing the sea: the "playful flutes" that bring the oceanides to life but which feel "alien" in the landscape's vastness; the "powerful swell" of wind and water conveyed by oboe and clarinet over undulating strings and harp glissandi; the sustained wind chord symbolizing the "limitless expanse of the sea"; and, the "mighty climax" of the storm, the final wave crash which "always exceeds one's expectations".

[50] Gray continues: The French masters of the method and their imitators in other countries confined their attention for the most part to an exploitation of the possibilities afforded by the upper reaches of the orchestral register, and to the attainment, principally, of effects of brilliance and luminosity.

In The Oceanides Sibelius has explored the lower depths of the orchestra more thoroughly than any one had previously done, and applied the impressionist method of scoring to the bass instruments, thereby achieving effects of sonority hitherto unknown.

Tawaststjerna, for example, believes that the piece's "anchorage in the major-minor harmony and the relatively sparing use of modal and whole-tone formulae" indicates that the tone poem "belongs to the world of late romanticism", the impressionistic character of its texture, harmonic vocabulary, and rhythmic patterns notwithstanding.

The Guardian's Andrew Clements labeled the record the best of 2003, noting that the early versions of The Oceanides permitted the listener to see "the mechanics of musical genius laid bare".