c. 1892
Eero Järnefelt, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

A statue has never been set up in honor of a critic.

The Finnish people had been an ethnic minority in the Kingdom of Sweden since the Medieval Period. However, in one of the many ancillary wars of the Napoleonic Era, Tsar Alexander I attacked Sweden in 1809. The western part of Sweden was annexed into the Russian Empire as the semi-independent Grand Duchy of Finland.

The Finns had never been especially happy under Swedish domination, and were not much happier under Russian domination. Nationalism continued to strengthen, bolstered especially by Finnish author Elias Lönnrot's epic poem, the Kalevala, and the music of composer Jean Sibelius.

Sibelius was born in 1865 and grew up in a small town called Hämeenlinna on the Gulf of Finland, where his family taught him to play piano and violin. Dreaming of becoming a violin virtuoso, he moved to Helsinki to train in music formally. He moved on to study in Berlin and Vienna as well, and developed an appreciation for Beethoven, Wagner, and Anton Bruckner. Around this time, he started calling himself Jean, the French version of his birth name, Johan.

In 1891, he auditioned for the Vienna Philharmonic, but did not make it, so he returned to Finland, married Aino Järnefelt, the daughter of a Finnish aristocrat, built a home by Lake Tuusulanjärvi in the town of Järvenpää near Helsinki, and began to focus on composition. He wrote many popular works based on Finnish folklore, such as "Kullervo," a musical setting of material from the Kalevala, and "Finlandia," as well as tone poems and several symphonies. Like Grieg in Norway, the local Finnish government recognized the importance of Sibelius' work to their sense of national identity and pride, and granted him a lifetime annuity in 1898.

c. 1939
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Sibelius was a heavy drinker and smoker, and developed throat cancer in 1908, which was cured by a risky surgery. He gave up these habits for a few years.

Finland declared independence from Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. Caught between Sweden, Russia, and Germany, the first half of the twentieth century was a turbulent time for Finland, but inspired by its national composer, the country managed to maintain its independence.

Starting in 1926, Sibelius stopped composing major works or even commenting much on the musical world, a period known as "the Silence of Järvenpää." He and his wife lived in their home by the lake until his death in 1957 at the age of 91.