The music is said to display an astounding richness of imagination and inventive capacity, and is considered by some as one of Sibelius's greatest achievements.
The Tempest and Tapiola were to be his last great works, and he wrote little else for the remaining 32 years of his life, which came to be known as "The Silence of Järvenpää".
In 1925, his Danish publisher Wilhelm Hansen again raised the idea, as the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen was going to stage the work the following year, directed by Adam Poulsen.
It originally consisted of 34 pieces, for vocalists, mixed-voice choir, harmonium and a large orchestra.
Reviews noted that "Shakespeare and Sibelius, these two geniuses, have finally found one another", and praised in particular the part played by the music and stage sets.
He did not hear the music for the first time until the autumn of 1927 when the Finnish National Theatre in Helsinki staged the work.