genre, for I consider that you have precisely the properties that make a symphonic composer. This is my firm belief."), and the 10 February 1916 premiere of Madetoja's First Symphony found Sibelius's remarking on its beauty. The 17 December 1918 premiere of Madetoja's Second Symphony similarly impressed Sibelius, who was again in attendance. Nevertheless, Sibelius also eyed Madetoja's maturation somewhat wearily. For example, when some reviews of the First Symphony discerned within Madetoja's music the influence of Sibelius, he worried his former pupil might take offence at the comparison and mistook Madetoja's characteristic "melancholia" for "sulkiness". Suddenly, Sibelius found Madetoja arrogant and watched with concern as he drew closer to Kajanus, with whom Sibelius had an on-again-off-again friendship/rivalry. "Met Madetoja, who—I'm sorry to say—has become pretty bumptious after his latest success," Sibelius fretted to his diary. "Kajanus smothers him with flattery and he hasn't the breeding to see it for what it is." A second complication for the Madetoja-Sibelius relationship was the master's fear that his former pupil eventually might "supplant him in public esteem". Certainly Madetoja's rise coincided with Sibelius's increasing sense of isolation: Madetoja was "scarcely aware" of Sibelius's private musings to his diary, and for his part, he continued as a critic and writer to champion actively his former teacher. In July 1914, for example, Madetoja praised Sibelius's tone poem, The Oceanides, writing in Uusi Suometar that rather than "repeat endlessly" the style of his previous works, Sibelius had yet again shown his penchant for "renewing himself musically … It is the sign of life … always forward, striving for new aims." He also had kind words for Tapiola, describing it as "a beautiful work", and among others, Sibelius's Third, Fourth, and Fifth symphonies. Despite his conducting duties in Viipuri and the stress of composing his First Symphony, Madetoja sought to take on yet another commitment: to write the first Finnish language biography of Sibelius in honor of the master's fiftieth birthday in 1915. Notwithstanding his initial misgivings, Sibelius consented to the project; certainly, he could not have found a biographer more sympathetic and sensitive than Madetoja. The interviews at Ainola, however, came to nothing: to the embarrassment of both men, publishers were uninterested in the biography. As Madetoja wrote to Sibelius: As a result, the biography was abandoned and Madetoja settled for a piece in Helsingin sanomat in which he took other critics to task for