That Madetoja's own musical style shows the mark of Sibelius is a testament to the longer duration and greater depth of his instruction under Sibelius; Kuula, who only briefly studied with Sibelius, shows no such influence. Finally, Sibelius—prone to periods of self-doubt and ever-concerned with his standing in artistic circles—was mistrustful of the next generation of composers, fearing one might displace him from his perch. "Youth has a right to make its voice heard. One sees oneself as a father figure to them all", Sibelius confided to his diary. "[But] they don't give a damn about you. Perhaps with reason." Despite these issues, Madetoja found his instruction under Sibelius enriching and the two men enjoyed a "harmonious" relationship, notwithstanding occasional irritations. Madetoja was clearly fond of his teacher and enjoyed Sibelius's counsel and company:  Madetoja continued to feel this way throughout his life. A decade later, he sought to defend Sibelius against the (growing) conventional wisdom that he was a poor teacher around whom no appreciable school of thought had formed (unlike, for example, Arnold Schoenberg and the Second Viennese School). In "Aulos", a volume published on the occasion of Sibelius's sixtieth birthday in 1925, Madetoja argued for a more nuanced, less "superficial" definition of the word 'teacher' and recounted with fondness his personal experiences as one of Sibelius's pupils. Sibelius followed Madetoja's rise with the pride of a teacher. Early on he recognized his pupil's potential as a symphonic composer ("What you wrote about your symphonic business delights me exceedingly," Sibelius wrote to Madetoja. "I feel that you will achieve your greatest triumphs in that 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".