Jean Sibelius

Finland's leading composer and the most noted symphonic composer of Scandinavia, he wrote seven symphonies between 1899 and 1924, and Britannica locates his achievement principally in a remarkable mastery of form and a capacity for organic growth.

The Kalevala-inspired Kullervo Symphony (1892) created a sensation and, with En Saga, the Karelia music and The Swan of Tuonela, established him as Finland's leading composer; the Senate voted him a life pension in 1897 and Finlandia followed in 1899-1900.

His later symphonies and the tone poem Tapiola (1926) are counted among his greatest works, and his ideas of form influenced composers from Vaughan Williams and Barber to later Finnish, French and American composers, even though critics such as Adorno attacked him and his reputation recovered from the late 1980s.

In the 1940s a basket of his manuscripts was fed into the stove at Ainola; his widow could identify the early Karelia Suite among them, and the long-awaited Eighth Symphony is now considered to have been destroyed too, after promises to Koussevitzky through the early 1930s.

This is consistent with an exacting standard for work he was willing to release, though the reason for the burning is not documented. Perfectionism

The Fifth Symphony was first performed on his 50th birthday in December 1915, revised in 1916, and not final until 1919, when its first two movements had been fused into one and the slow movement widened.

This is consistent with continued reworking of a large piece over several years until it met his own standard. Persistence

After leaving law studies and training in Berlin and Vienna, in Vienna in 1890-91 he read the Kalevala and sought a Finnish rhythm for his music, then began Kullervo, which on its 1892 premiere created a sensation and made him Finland's leading composer.

This is consistent with a composer who trained deliberately and then turned that training toward a distinctive material of his own. Mastery Orientation