In 1899, Sibelius wrote music to accompany six Historical Tableaux for a gala performance in Sweden. The tableaux traced the history of Finland from the mythological past to the embattled present, and after their premiere performance were soon revised as an independent item and retitled Finlandia.

The once decidedly popular (and consequently scorned) concert waltz Valse triste, began its life as part of the incidental music for the play Kuolema (Death) by Sibelius’s brother-in-law Arvid Järnefelt. The music originally accompanied a dreamlike ballet sequence in which a dying woman relived the memory of a ball she had once attended.

Scene with Cranes was also derived from the score for Kuolema. The work is fragile, almost minimalist tone poem. Etheral string writing creates a background for the clarinet’s lonely, stylized crane-calls.

Sibelius’s last extended orchestal work, Tapiola, is deliberately associated with "wild" or "Savage" dreams; "Tapiola" means "realm of Tapoi" - the forest-god who is closely linked with a frightening beast.

First performed in 1893, when Sibelius was twenty-eight years old. En saga occupies a pivotal position in the composer’s output. Its dramatically modified sonata structure is driven by a purposeful rhythmic impetus that emerges early in the slow introduction.

The tone poem Pohjola’s Daughter, composed between the Second and Third Symphonies, is subtitles "Symphonic Fantasia". The story, summarized in a poetic introduction to the score was almost certainly chosen for its potentially musical form as much as for its specific narrative content.