Sibelius. The Eighth Symphony.

[pastoralguy]

I've been listening to the Sibelius symphonies played by the BBC Philharmonic under John Storgards. On reading the booklet, the writer, Timo Virtanen puts forward the idea that Sibelius' compositional decline was due less to diminishing inspiration and more because of poor eyesight and an uncontrollable tremor in his hands that made his writing difficult to read.

Whilst I know the story of the infamous bonfire where Sibelius burnt much manuscript paper, I've often held on to the hope that there IS an Eighth Symphony sitting in a drawer somewhere with strict instructions from its creator that it is not to be released until a certain date. Perhaps, one day, the family will announce it.

Certainly, the very brief fragments on the recording suggest a whole new compositional voice from the great man. Maybe, one day...

Or is it just wishful thinking?

[richardfinegold]

Keep wishing.

[BBMmk2]

it's like all the other unfinished works by the great composers, eg should there have been a realisation performing edition of Mahler's 10th. how can we be sure of various things that are in it

[Pabmusic]

it's like all the other unfinished works by the great composers, eg should there have been a realisation performing edition of Mahler's 10th. how can we be sure of various things that are in it

I've always understood that the eighth was complete: that's what's so fascinating about it. Tragedy that Sibelius burned it.

Composers!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I've always understood that the eighth was complete

Yes - that's how I understood the way matters stood.

The Storgards recording is of a few surviving sketches; I think it is the performance of these to which Bbm refers?

[Pabmusic]

Yes - that's how I understood the way matters stood.

The Storgards recording is of a few surviving sketches; I think it is the performance of these to which Bbm refers?

Yes - the sketches were presumably something that Sibelius overlooked.

[visualnickmos]

The way I see it is, that composers, writers, artists etc, DO know what they are doing, and they as the creators of a given work, know if, basically, it is any good. Therefore, if they know a work isn't really saying what they wanted it to say or portray, the urge to eliminate it is perfectly natural, and it is their right. I know this from my own creative life. Even if one 'hides' it there is always that chance, that, like a ghost, it will come back and haunt you. Artists (in the broadest sense of the word) are right to want to show only what they want to be seen.

For example, a master carpenter may make, what to the layman, is a beautiful table. But the craftsman may know that there are imperfections, aspects that could be better, and so on. He won't want to showcase it..... or even want to be in anyway associated with it.

That's why I think it's wrong to go rummaging through a composer's drawers (if I can put it that way) looking for bits and pieces, then to cobble something together as a 'what might have been'. It's a bit like someone going through your personal possessions.....

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

The way I see it is, that composers, writers, artists etc, DO know what they are doing, and they as the creators of a given work, know if, basically, it is any good. Therefore, if they know a work isn't really saying what they wanted it to say or portray, the urge to eliminate it is perfectly natural, and it is their right. I know this from my own creative life. Even if one 'hides' it there is always that chance, that, like a ghost, it will come back and haunt you. Artists (in the broadest sense of the word) are right to want to show only what they want to be seen.

Generally true, but in the case of Sibelius and his Eighth Symphony, not necessarily what was going on - Sibelius had doubts, certainly (which is why he dithered about sending the finished work to his publisher), but he was also plagued by depression and a lack of self-confidence in his later years, and it was during a particularly savage period that he burnt the score. (On other occasions, he was wont to tell people that it was "ready" for publication, and IIRC, even sent it to a publisher on at least one occasion before almost immediately requesting its return.) In other words, Sibelius the man wasn't necessarily always in the best frame of mind to make rational judgement of the work of Sibelius the composer. And, to do the man justice, how the flip do you "follow" the Seventh and Tapiola, which between them sum up and synthesize a lifetime devoted to the Symphony and the Tone Poem?! If the Eighth had been as good as, say, the Third, he might still have destroyed it as being an inadequate "heir"!

FWiW, I so wish that he had vented his critical spleen on the Kullervo "Symphony" and left us with the Eighth and the frustration of wondering what the "pre-First" Symphony might have been like!

That's why I think it's wrong to go rummaging through a composer's drawers (if I can put it that way) looking for bits and pieces, then to cobble something together as a 'what might have been'. It's a bit like someone going through your personal possessions.....

Just out of interest, visnick - do you know any works that are "cobbled ... together as a 'what might have been'"?

[visualnickmos]

In other words, Sibelius the man wasn't necessarily always in the best frame of mind to make rational judgement of the work of Sibelius the composer. And, to do the man justice, how the flip do you "follow" the Seventh and Tapiola, which between them sum up and synthesize a lifetime devoted to the Symphony and the Tone Poem?!

Well, whatever his frame of mind, it's clear that he was seriously being niggled by the eighth, and may well have been thinking (see bold highlighted text above)

Just out of interest, visnick - do you know any works that are "cobbled ... together as a 'what might have been'"?

I suppose an obvious possible contender might be the almost-ubiquitous Elgar 3 - but I don't know the work at all, as I've never listened to it for that very reason...

[vinteuil]

The way I see it is, that composers, writers, artists etc, DO know what they are doing, and they as the creators of a given work, know if, basically, it is any good. Therefore, if they know a work isn't really saying what they wanted it to say or portray, the urge to eliminate it is perfectly natural, and it is their right ...

... so Virgil's death-bed injunction to his executors to destroy The Aeneid should have been followed? - and Kafka, and Emily Dickinson?

- from wiki :

"When Virgil died, he left instructions that his manuscript of the Aeneid was to be burnt, as it was a draft version with uncorrected faults and not a final version for release. However, this instruction was ignored. It is mainly to the Aeneid, published in this "imperfect" form, that Virgil owes his lasting fame - and it is considered one of the great masterpieces of Classical literature as a whole.

Before his death, Franz Kafka wrote to his friend and literary executor Max Brod: "Dearest Max, my last request: Everything I leave behind me... in the way of diaries, manuscripts, letters (my own and others'), sketches, and so on, [is] to be burned unread." Brod overrode Kafka's wishes, believing that Kafka had given these directions to him, specifically, because Kafka knew he would not honour them – Brod had told him as much. Had Brod carried out Kafka's instructions, virtually the whole of Kafka's work – except for a few short stories published in his lifetime – would have been lost forever. Most critics, at the time and up to the present, justify Brod's decision.

A similar case concerns the noted American poet Emily Dickinson, who died in 1890 and left to her sister Lavinia the instruction of burning all her papers. Lavinia Dickinson did burn almost all of her sister's correspondences, but interpreted the will as not including the forty notebooks and loose sheets, all filled with almost 1800 poems; these Lavinia saved and began to publish the poems that year. Had Lavinia Dickinson been more strict in carrying out her sister's will, all but a small handful of Emily Dickinson's poetic work would have been lost."

[visualnickmos]

... so Virgil's death-bed injunction to his executors to destroy The Aeneid should have been followed? - and Kafka, and Emily Dickinson?

In essence, 'yes' because if an artist creates something, it is theirs. Unless, of course it is a commission..... but that's another matter.

If I'd decided to bin a painting that I'd made, and someone retrieved it from the landfill, and published it, naming me as its originator, I would NOT be at all happy!

[vinteuil]

... if an artist creates something, it is theirs.

... you don't think that in a sense once a work is created - such as the Aeneid - it no longer 'belongs' to the artist, it belongs to all of us, to 'Humanity'... ?

[visualnickmos]

... you don't think that in a sense once a work is created - such as the Aeneid - it no longer 'belongs' to the artist, it belongs to all of us, to 'Humanity'... ?

I maintain my stance!

What right have 'the rest of us' to claim possession of something that we didn't create, unless it is intended by its creator 'for the public domain?' That's pretty much collective theft!

[LeMartinPecheur]

I maintain my stance!

What right have 'the rest of us' to claim possession of something that we didn't create, unless it is intended by its creator 'for the public domain?' That's pretty much collective theft!

The 'right' we have is that the thing is here in front of us, the artist's ghost has no legal rights, and therefore no one can stop us. The artist should have been more careful to clean up his own mess!

Mess? I'm struggling to think of a case where an artist's reputation has been truly damaged by posthumous publication of works meant to be 'filed in bin'. There are doubtless many cases of reputations not advanced, in which case the work gets conveniently forgotten. I for one cheer loudly the breaches of duty, if such they be, that have led to more Emily Dickinson, the Aeneid, Mahler 10, Elgar 3, etc etc.

Of course, I don't say that those who choose to respect the artist's wishes are wrong, but in general I do think they're missing out on great gifts of happenstance.

[Serial_Apologist]

I maintain my stance!

What right have 'the rest of us' to claim possession of something that we didn't create, unless it is intended by its creator 'for the public domain?' That's pretty much collective theft!

I wouldn't mind being able to see or hear something without any need to possess it, though.