Symphony No. 5 (Sibelius)  The Symphony No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 82, by Jean Sibelius is a symphony in three movements. Sibelius was commissioned to write the symphony by the Finnish government in honour of his 50th birthday, 8 December 1915, which had been declared a national holiday. The symphony was originally composed in 1915; it was revised in 1916 and 1919. During its composition, Sibelius wrote of the symphony in his diary, "It is as if God Almighty had thrown down pieces of a mosaic for heaven's floor and asked me to find out what was the original pattern." The original version of the work was premiered by the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Sibelius on his 50th birthday. The second version, only part of which survives, was first performed by the Orchestra of Turun Soitannollinen Seura in Turku exactly one year later. The final version, which is the one most commonly performed today, was premiered again by the Helsinki Philharmonic, conducted by Sibelius, on 24 November 1919. The first version of the new symphony kept much of his familiar orchestral style (consonant sonorities, woodwind lines in parallel thirds, rich melodic development, etc.) but also shows some similarities with the more modernist Fourth Symphony, featuring a few bitonal passages. The 1919 version seems more straightforward, monumental and classical, and also cleared away some digressions and ornaments. Sibelius commented on his revision: "I wished to give my symphony another – more human – form. More down-to-earth, more vivid." The 1910s were a decade of change for the symphonic form, which had by then existed for well over a century. Meanwhile, various landmark works in other genres had presented further radical developments. In 1909, Arnold Schoenberg pushed for more and more dissonant and chromatic harmonies in his Five Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 16. From 1910–1913, Igor Stravinsky premiered his innovative and revolutionary ballets "The Firebird", "Petrushka", and "The Rite of Spring". Maurice Ravel and Claude Debussy were at work developing and performing their impressionistic music. Though he had been in the public spotlight for nearly twenty years, Sibelius found his works receiving poor reviews for the first time with the 1911 premiere of his Symphony No. 4 and, as James Hepokoski has written, "was beginning to sense his own eclipse as a contending modernist."