Symphony No. 8 (Sibelius)
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Today, virtually none of the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius's Symphony No. 8 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 in 1926, but he lived another thirty years, and many think 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 [1].
But, after all this, "Symphony No 8" never materialised. There will always be debate as to how complete it actually was. His wife recounts seeing him feeding manuscript papers into a fire in 1945, and many believe that among these papers was the completed Eighth Symphony. Sibelius was prone to insecurity and depression, and such destructive behaviour was not unprecedented. He is believed to have destroyed an earlier version of his Fifth Symphony and an extended version of the Karelia Suite, but fortunately both of these have now been recovered.
While 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 would still say that he was still working on his Eighth Symphony. Whatever its state of completion, the work died with him.
The only traces of the symphony that have survived are some marginalia in a copy of his Seventh Symphony, some minor sketches of the symphony that have been found in the library of Helsinki University, and Surusoitto, Op. 111b, which Aino Sibelius claimed was based on material from the symphony.
