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Classical Fact

Jean Sibelius was Finland's greatest composer; although he lived to be 92, he stopped composing at the age of 70. His patriotism was expressed in Finlandia, written in 1899 for a charity event in Helsinki, which was really an anti-Russian gathering. (Finland was part of Czarist Russia at the time). Finlandia was an immediate hit with the nationalists, but it annoyed the authorities so much that they banned people from whistling it in public.