Jean Sibelius was born in Hämeenlinna, Finland, on December 8, 1865, and died in Järvenpää, Finland, on September 20, 1957. The first performance of the Second Symphony took place in Helsinki, Finland, on March 8, 1902, with the composer conducting. The Second Symphony is scored for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, and strings. Approximate performance time is forty-three minutes.

In the fall of 1900, Jean Sibelius and his family departed Finland for Italy, stopping first in Berlin. In February 1901, they reached their destination; the Ligurian coastal village of Rapallo. There, Sibelius began work on his Symphony No. 2.

In May of 1901, Sibelius and his family returned to Finland, where Sibelius continued his Second Symphony. In November, Sibelius informed Baron Axel Carpelan that he had almost completed the work. However, Sibelius continued to revise the Symphony, necessitating postponement until March of the planned January 1902 premiere.

Sibelius conducted the premiere of his Second Symphony in Helsinki on March 8, 1902. It was a rousing success, and Sibelius repeated the program on March 10, 14 and 16, each time to a capacity audience. This was a particularly tumultuous period in Finland’s history, a time when the country was under the grip of Russian domination. Patriotic emotions were at a fever pitch. Sibelius had previously composed overtly nationalistic pieces, such as Finlandia (1899), and the Finnish people were anxious to find a similar message in the new Symphony.

In an article that appeared the day after the premiere of the Symphony No. 2, Finnish conductor Robert Kajanus ascribed the following program to the last three movements of the Second Symphony:

"The Andante strikes one as the most broken-hearted protest against all the injustice that threatens at the present time to deprive the sun of its light and our flowers of their scent...The scherzo gives a picture of frenetic preparation. Everyone piles his straw on the haystack, all fibres are strained and every second seems to last an hour. One senses in the contrasting trio section with its oboe motive in G flat major what is at stake. The finale develops toward a triumphant conclusion intended to rouse in the listener a picture of lighter and confident prospects for the future."

Years later, conductor Georg Schnéevoigt, a close friend of Sibelius, wrote that the opening movement depicts the untroubled pastoral life of the Finnish people before the onslaught of foreign oppression.

Throughout his life, Sibelius was consistent in his emphatic denial that the Second Symphony was based upon any such programs. Still, it is not surprising that the Finnish people continued to find a personal message of hope in this fiercely dramatic (and in the end, triumphant) work by their greatest composer. More than a century after its premiere, the Symphony No. 2 remains a source of inspiration and pride for the Finnish people, as well as a mainstay of the international symphonic repertoire.

The Second Symphony is in four movements. The first (Allegretto) opens with a repeated ascending figure in the strings, based upon a three-pitch motif that forms the nucleus for several themes throughout the work. The slow-tempo second movement (Tempo, Andante, ma rubato) incorporates music Sibelius first associated with an encounter between Don Juan and Death. 

The third movement is a quicksilver scherzo (Vivacissimo), with a pastoral central episode. The concluding movement (Finale. Allegro moderato) follows without pause. The Symphony’s opening three-note motif is now presented in an heroic transformation. In the stunning climax, the motif undergoes its final and most eloquent transfiguration.