This was echoed in his interview in the Svenska Dagbladet after a performance of the Sixth in Stockholm in March 1923: "I do not think of a symphony only as music in this or that number of bars, but rather as an expression of a spiritual creed, a phase in one's inner life."
He viewed a symphony not merely as music within specific bars, but rather as an expression of a spiritual belief system, a stage in one's inner life.