When Jean Sibelius returned to Finland from a trip to Europe, he came home to a country experiencing a great cultural Renaissance. Poets, painters, dramatists, and other artists had immersed themselves in their Finnish heritage. Sibelius’s immensely popular Finlandia sprang forth from this movement. Although Sibelius began work on the Symphony No. 2 in 1901 while studying in Italy, he completed it in the same year after his return to Finland. To this day, the symphony has remained one of Sibelius’s most popular works, exemplifying his characteristic harmonies, simple themes, dark winds, and muted strings, as well as a distinctly “national” spirit.  

As a young man, Sibelius maintained that all music had at least an unconscious program, if not an explicit story. While the Second Symphony is not explicitly programmatic, Sibelius’s close friend and translator, Georg Schneevoigt, said that the first movement depicts quiet, pastoral life in Finland, unencumbered by thoughts of domination or oppression. The second movement is “charged with patriotic feeling,” while the ensuing Scherzo has been said to depict the arousal of Finnish nationalism. The finale is the true culmination of the symphony: bold, soaring music that portrays a nation emerging from its shackles.