Stylistically, many commentators have described "The Oceanides" as broadly impressionistic, in particular drawing comparisons with Debussy's "La mer". Harold Johnson, for example, writes that the themes and orchestration of the piece, with muted string tremolos and harp glissandi, "bear more than a superficial resemblance" to Debussy's style (he further suggests that Sibelius may have feared his original title, " ", was "too close to Debussy"). Gray, who calls the orchestral technique in "The Oceanides" "strikingly different" from anything else in Sibelius's oeuvre, stresses that the work is far from "derivative". Rather, he argues that Sibelius builds upon and revolutionizes the French impressionist technique, making it "entirely his own, and not merely a reflection or distortion of Debussy". Gray continues: