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To mark Finnish Independence Day – on December 6 1917, Finland ended its autonomy as a Grand Duchy within Russia and became a republic – the ´óÏó´«Ã½ SO’s Finnish Chief Conductor offers a programme by Finland’s greatest composer. Sibelius’s Press Celebrations Music contains what would later emerge as Finlandia which soon became a defiant unofficial national anthem. Guy Johnson plays two rarities for cello and orchestra, originally written in 1915 for church use, and which share the same opus number. The ´óÏó´«Ã½ SO’s Sibelius’s symphony cycle continues with the powerful First from 1899, a time when the Russian Emperor was flexing his muscles at the Finnish people, giving the music an almost political charge.