As Finnish composer Jean Sibelius was writing his First Symphony in the late 1890s, Russia took steps to limit Finland's autonomy and absorb it into its Empire. Completed in 1899 about the time the Russian Tsar issued a manifesto outlining the Russification of Finland, the symphony opens with a clarinet, like a song of Finland, against the distant and consistent rumbling of the timpani like an approaching enemy. This sets the tone for the entire symphony of themes against competing forces (nearly always present in the timpani), often becoming an impassioned battle. This may or may not have been Sibelius's intent, but he was a fierce Finnish nationalist and the symphony was from the same year he composed his nationalistic "Finlandia." The Symphony No. 1 by Jean Sibelius is today's Midday Masterpiece.
