"Finlandia!"

Noise became music last week, to the ears of Illinoisans who are proud to live in Joliet. Not merely noise but blatant hubbub, ghastly uproar and bomb explosions.

Babbitts blew horns. Whistles split ears. Skyrockets hissed. Thud-bombs thudded. And bevies of Joliettes screamed for joy-- all because the Joliet high school band had won for the third time, and obtained final possession of the Class A cup offered by the National Bureau for the Advancement of Music.

Chief Judge John Philip Sousa of the National Band Concert, sponsored by the bureau at Joliet, had to listen last week while 27 bands comprising 2,000 high schoolers successively blared Finlandia, a stirring tone-poem of famed Finn Jean Sibelius. Although the genius of Sibelius has brought him a permanent subsidy from the Finnish government, he did not compose the national anthem: Maame Laulu ("The Song of our Country"), opus of Funns Bacius (composer) and Runeberg (poet).