Tapiola (meaning the domain of Tapio, the Finnish forest god, just as Sibelius's house Ainola is the domain of his wife Aino) was Sibelius's last surviving work of any importance, after which he did not retire (as is so easily assumed), but fought a long and ultimately losing battle with his Eighth Symphony. Tapiola is thus a grand summing-up of his creative life, a blend of the legendary and the symphonic. Curiously, this profoundly Finnish music was actually written in Italy, where Sibelius visited in early 1926. Most of his major orchestral works he premiered himself, using the opportunity to make final revisions, but Tapiola had been commissioned by Walter Damrosch and the New York Symphonic Society, who gave the first performance there in December.

sources

A  Autograph score (1926), lost

E,P  First and only edition of score and parts, published by Breitkopf & Härtel in 1926

25  Vc(a): n.16 f # is correct in E (cf. also Vl 2a). The problem is that P has g #, and since this may appear more plausible, conductors have been known to alter Vl 2a to match this; but f # is correct

208  Vls, Vla, Vc: probably sempre con sord., but arguably ambiguous since this is restated in 290. Yet 296 Vla must be sempre con sord. (though only stated in 130), hence senza at 359