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The founding of the city of St. Petersburg in 1703 meant the birth of a new orientation, a source of innovative ideas and of growth potential for the Finns. Building materials and labour were imported for the new metropolis from neighbouring Finland right from the early stages, and many of the city's bridges and palaces rest on Finnish granite.

The Russian-born composer Ernest Pingoud (1887–1942) emigrated to Finland to escape the revolution in 1918 and spent most of his working life there. He became one of the champions of musical modernism in Finland at its height in the 1920s, together with Väinö Raitio and Aarre Merikanto.

Finland prides itself on being an exemplary country as regards its music education. Foreigners sigh with envy on hearing about our unique music institute system covering all levels from babies right up to PhD students and beyond. And although the music institutes nowadays receive considerable public funding, not one of them was founded by an order from on high; they have just sprung up in response to public demand wherever sufficient material resources have been forthcoming.

Finnish cinema is enjoying a major boom: the higher degree of professionalism and the growing rate of new releases are paying dividends in bigger box-office figures. In the process, music is regaining its status as part of the total experience, and the severed link between directors and composers is being restored again.

Finnish arts policy attracts attention and interest internationally because of its remarkable results. Per capita, Finland has produced an astounding number of world-class conductors, composers and instrumentalists. Why is this? What is the secret behind this success?

"You are born with a dramatic pulse, with dramatic thinking, and that's that. I've written now about two-thirds, so I call it a marathon," says composer Aulis Sallinen, whose new opera King Lear will be premiered at the Finnish National Opera on 15 September, 2000.

In a book entitled Mielen maisemat ja musiikki (Landscapes of the Mind and Music) Kari Kurkela addresses the problems encountered by the child in learning to play a musical instrument in the light of psychoanalysis and mythology. Lively interaction between training in sensitivity and the constructive channelling of aggression is, he claims, important: so important in fact that without these elements of creativity the child's playing will be reduced to little more than "potty training".

Paavo Berglund, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Osmo Vänskä, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Sir Colin Davis, Sir Simon Rattle, and Neeme Järvi are today's great Sibelius conductors, carrying on a tradition that began with Robert Kajanus and Sir Thomas Beecham. What are their thoughts on the Finnish composer?

The Estonian song festival is a concept whose history and significance cannot be assessed with conventional artistic criteria. Since the last century, the song festivals organized in Tallinn have been a demonstration of Estonian culture and national spirit whose power has been strongest at crucial turning points in the nations history. On the other hand, they have also served as a showcase for a rich and original culture of singing and as a demonstration of a rare and heartfelt musical togetherness.