The first analytical point at which musicologists have disagreed is how to confront the clear separation of the first movement into two parts. In fact, in the first two versions of the work, Sibelius divided his symphony into four movements with the "Allegro moderato" section of what is now the first movement separated to form a Scherzo movement. In the final 1919 version, the character changes at this point with what Gray describes as "superficial dissimilarity and independence of each other". Earlier musicologists like Parmet analysed the movement as two separate parts while Gray stressed the separateness of these sections while acknowledging their coexistence in one movement. They did so because of the clear meter change from to . Furthermore, after this meter change, where rehearsal letters should continue from N to the end of the alphabet, they return to A, a clear sign of a beginning of a new movement.