Jean Sibelius's Tulen synty ('The Origin of Fire') is a setting of Runo 47 of the Kalevala for baritone, male chorus and orchestra. First composed in 1902 for the opening of the National Theatre in Helsinki and premièred on 9th April under the composer's own baton, the work was revised in 1910. With its subject — the rekindling of fire — the cantata carried strong patriotic resonance in 1902, when Finnish resistance to Russian rule was a pressing political reality. The cantata is presented here alongside other orchestral and choral works by Sibelius from the same creative period, offering a rounded portrait of the composer in the years when his nationalist ambitions and his purely musical instincts were drawing ever closer together.