Symphony No. 8 (Sibelius)

Symphony No. 8 (Sibelius)

Jean Sibelius's Symphony No. 8 was the last major work the composer worked on, and never completed. Today, virtually none of the score exists. The manuscript was probably burned by Sibelius in 1945. It remains one of the great mysteries of twentieth-century classical music.

Sibelius produced his last major work, Tapiola, in 1926, but he lived another thirty years, and it has been suggested that he spent much of this time working on an eighth symphony. He promised the work as early as 1930. In letters to his wife Aino, he discusses the symphony's composition. Furthermore, there are records of him ordering large amounts of manuscript paper and of him having a large work copied out in the mid 1930s. There exists a 1937 receipt stating that a large work had been bound. He promised the premiere of this symphony to Serge Koussevitzky in 1931 and 1932, and a London performance in 1933 under Basil Cameron was even advertised to the public. But, after all this, "Symphony No 8" never materialised. His wife recounts seeing him feeding manuscript papers into a fire in 1945, and some believe that among these papers was the completed Eighth Symphony. Sibelius was prone to insecurity and depression, and such destructive behaviour was not unprecedented. It was once believed that he destroyed an earlier version of his Fifth Symphony and an extended version of the Karelia Suite, but both have since been located.

Although Sibelius refused to discuss the matter with journalists, he did talk about the symphony privately with colleagues and friends. However, what he said was notoriously inconsistent. He told some that he had several movements written down but others were told that the symphony still only existed in his mind. Even into the 1950s, long after it was supposedly written (and supposedly destroyed), Sibelius said that he was still working on his Eighth Symphony.

Santeri Levas, personal secretary to Sibelius from 1938 until the composer's death in 1957, states as follows: "I believe that in his old age Sibelius had no other work than the Eighth Symphony in mind... Whenever he was asked to compose something—which happened not infrequently—he made me reply that he was attached to the idea of a bigger work. He made use of this expression on many occasions, and often said to me that he would complete a major work before his death."

For years it was believed that the only traces of the symphony that had survived were some marginalia in a copy of his Seventh Symphony, some sketches of the symphony found in the library of Helsinki University, and Surusoitto, Op. 111b, which Aino claimed was based on material from the symphony.

However, according to Tino Virtanen, the editor-in-chief of the collected edition of Sibelius, the archives donated by Sibelius's family to the University of Helsinki contain extensive drafts which are likely to relate to the missing symphony. Extracts from these were given an orchestral rehearsal in October 2011, and a reconstruction of all or part of the symphony may be possible from them.