Premiered at the 1913 Gloucester Festival in England, Luonnotar dates to around 1910, but may have been written as late as 1912. What is unusual here is that Sibelius, the Finnish national hero, for once set text in his native Finnish language. Most of his large-scale vocal and choral works employed Swedish texts, Swedish being the composer's first language. Sibelius did, however, write a fair number of songs in Finnish. The text from Luonnotar is taken from the first part of the Finnish national epic the Kalevala and deals with the creation of the world. Sibelius wrote the work for Finnish soprano Aino Ackté, one of the few singers willing to confront the work's wide range, which encompasses B to C flat. Sibelius called Luonnotar a tone poem for soprano and orchestra. It opens with busy strings softly, rhythmically scurrying about. When the soprano enters, the tempo temporarily slows, but the tension remains as she sings her icy, grim music. The mood throughout the work is dark and ominous, tense and dramatic, with not a ray of sunshine anywhere. It is much like the contemporary Symphony No. 4 (1911), in particular like that work's first and third movements. The singer and orchestra in Luonnotar share fairly equal roles, but the most dramatic moments are vocal. The piece lasts about nine or ten minutes.

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