Sibelius 8th on Radio 4 this morning

[Serial_Apologist]

Here is the R4 programme:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/player/b01kjt7h

Fascinating. Mark Elder crops up again as the BBC's eminence grise!! The fragments we heard show Sibelius experimenting with a 'new'* harmonic language, and if they really were part of the destroyed 8th, what a symphony it would have been.

*Also evidenced in some of the Five Sketches Op 114 for piano, of 1929. I believe Sibelius to have been far from barren of new ideas at the time he completed Tapiola. Think of the sheer originality displayed in that piece as well as the Seventh Symphony and the music to The Tempest! Being not well read up on Sibelius, I have no idea what led to his virtual abandonment of composition for well-nigh the last 30 years of his life.

[Gordon]

What a disappointing programme! Vast majority of what we heard is already common knowledge. Why was there not more about where these sketches came from and how they were authenticated? How did they survive when S is supposed to have burned the [complete?] score? If he was that bothered why let fragments survive? Anyway the snippets did sound strange but not unSibelius like, having said that there was precious little of it.

They appear to be on You Tube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmIGn97BXs8

Let's hope that next Tiwsday evening will reveal more. That he seemed more at peace after he'd burned it is interesting. This quote from a mesage board about these fragments:

"We can still hope that the parts of the 8th symphony that Paul Voigt copied out in the 1930′s might still come to light." How did he get hold of them then?

Part of the story here:

http://www.fmq.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=118&Itemid=133

[Roehre]

.... This quote from a mesage board about these fragments:

"We can still hope that the parts of the 8th symphony that Paul Voigt copied out in the 1930′s might still come to light." How did he get hold of them then?

Part of the story here:

http://www.fmq.fi/index.php?option=c...118&Itemid=133

Very simple: Paul Voigt started copying the first mvt of Sibelius 8 as that was sent to him by the composer in preparation of a full score to be send to the publisher. After a short while Sibelius asked the score to be returned "to make some changes".
That happened. At thus Voigt was the last person to have seen an actual score of [a mvt of] the 8th symphony.

As far as sketches are concerned: like Beethoven's 5000 pages or so Sibelius left a pile of a couple of thousand pages of sketches and finished scores, which his estate lent to the University of Helsinki's Library, where the finished and performable scores have been assessed, catalogued and partly published- and been recorded by BIS.
The rest of the manuscripts are now under research - all of these are sketches which are with certainty not straightforwardly performable works. Perhaps some may be reconstructed by putting together pages which have become separated (as from time to time happens with Beethoven's), but that is not very likely to happen.
In this respect to have 3 fragments of an orchestral score which MIGHT be fragments of the 8th is in itself already remarkable enough.

[ardcarp]

I have no idea what led to his virtual abandonment of composition for well-nigh the last 30 years of his life.

Too much trouble?

*Also evidenced in some of the Five Sketches Op 114 for piano, of 1929

One cannot help comparing Nielsen's adventures with harmonic language with Sibelius's relative conservatism...and they exact contemporaries?

What a disappointing programme! Vast majority of what we heard is already common knowledge.

Let's remember it was on Radio 4 and intended for a general audience...of which I count myself part. I wasn't remotely disappointed!

[Nick Armstrong]

I heard this, and found it quite interesting though not news save for the few minutes at the end which were actually about the Eighth - as mentioned above, with people talking over the music

But it seems as if it was all rather a long trailer for the main event, which is the interval programme to Tuesday's prom and when the full extant extracts will apparently be played uninterrupted http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01kpw91

I see Elder, Service et all are also announced for this programme too. I do find Elder's brand of rather facile earnestness sticks in the craw... (as mentioned on another thread)

[BBMmk2]

Where is the time? I seem to have become super turboed of late!

[Serial_Apologist]

Where is the time? I seem to have become super turboed of late!

And witnessing things in the sky that aren't there, too! Keep off the sugar cubes, BBM!

[Roehre]

For Sibelius 8 fragments; TONIGHT Proms's interval programme with the full extant extracts