Other commentators have cautioned against the conclusion that "The Oceanides" is either an example of impressionism or somehow stylistically indebted to Debussy. 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. Hurwitz has likewise criticized the "roaring cataract of nonsense in the Sibelius literature" about the influence of the French impressionists on the composer. "Similar musical problems often produce similar solutions", Hurwitz notes. "In this case, any symphonic portrait of the ocean is bound to rely more on texture and color than on vocal melody, for the simple reason that the ocean is not a person and does not sing ... nor does it lend itself to ... anthropomorphic approach ...". Layton detects the presence of "normal Sibelian procedures and techniques" in "The Oceanides", dismissing any serious debt to Debussy. "Its growth from the opening bars onward is profoundly organic", Layton writes. "And its apparent independence from the rest of Sibelius's work is manifest only at a superficial level".