In 1900, a few months before the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra were due to play at the Paris World Exhibition, Sibelius received a letter from an anonymous admirer (Axel Carpelan), asking whether he had considered writing an overture for the opening concert. “You ought to put something really devilish in. Rubinstein wrote a Fantasy for the Paris Exhibition of 1889, all based on Russian themes, and called it ‘Russia’; surely you can write an overture called ‘Finlandia’?” The rest, regarding that piece, is history; but Carpelan did not stop there. Soon after the success of the First Symphony he wrote to Sibelius, declaring: “You have sat at home quite long enough, Dr. Sibelius. It is high time you were on your travels. You can spend the late autumn and winter in Italy. Everything there is lovely – even the ugly. You will remember the important role that Italy played in the development of both Tchaikovsky and Strauss.” To ensure that Sibelius had no excuse for ignoring his exhortation, he managed to raise 5000 Markka (then about L250) for the composer's trip. Sibelius obeyed; he rented a villa in the mountains near Rapallo (near to Genova) for the spring of 1901, and duly started to compose. The story of Don Juan also occupied his thoughts, and soon the doleful melody of the second movement was associated with the entry of the Stone Guest into Don Juan's castle. As his work progressed in Florence and then back at home, he constantly kept Carpelan up to date with his progress, and essentially the symphony was finished in December, though final revisions delayed its completion until the first days of January 1902, when (8 January) he was able to report that a copyist was “at this very moment” writing out the orchestral parts. The premiere took place on 8 March in Helsinki, with Sibelius himself conducting. It was repeated three times, always to capacity audiences, and was a huge success; some saw it as the musical expression of Finland's struggle for independence from Russia, but Sibelius consistently denied it had any programmatic content. It has remained the most popular of all Sibelius's symphonies.