Finlandia, op. 26

Finlandia began in 1899 as the last of seven tableaux Sibelius wrote for a celebration of the Finnish press, staged as a protest after Nicholas II's February manifesto curtailed Finland's autonomy. That final tableau, Finland Awakens, was reworked the following year into a separate symphonic poem. Russian censorship made public performance difficult, so it travelled under invented titles — Impromptu, a Happy Feeling at the Awakening of Finnish Spring — during Robert Kajanus's European tour. The hymn-like passage in the middle was not a folk melody but Sibelius's own; he later set it as a separate choral piece.