"If Sibelius is to be considered a good composer, then we shall have to disregard all of the criteria historically used to evaluate music from Bach to Schoenberg."
Adorno's funny. Not that I disagree that's Sibelius is kind of sucky, and not because of the snobbery -- snob away, I say -- and not even because of the quasinationalist elevation of Bach and Schoenberg, but because of his thoroughly bourgeois belief that deploying transhistorical "criteria" is an acceptable critical approach. Unfortunately, and as much as I like his later stuff, his dialectic never did fully "negate" this prejudice.
(by the way, found the quote here <http://thebombparty.blogspot.com/2009/12/god-is-opening-his-doors-for-moment-and.html>, which I like very much.)