# Sibelius 8 Found!!!



## Celloman (Sep 30, 2006)

Today on the NPR Music website:

*
Sibelius Eighth Symphony Found in Attic*

This morning, the European Music Council stunned the music world by announcing that a
complete copy of Jean Sibelius' eighth symphony has been found. The discovery came in the
wake of a renewed interest for the composer's own sketches dating from the late twenties
through the early fifties-none of which had provided much insight, if any, into the mysterious
manuscript that he had supposedly destroyed in his own fireplace at Ainola in 1945.

"I was pinching myself all the way through the press conference," says Ruth Leffers,
reporting for the Glasgow Herald. "I'm thinking, Ruth, you listened to Sibelius as a child. He's
one of the greatest twentieth composers, you know? This had better not be somebody's idea of a
joke. But it wasn't. When they had finished and I was talking to one of the people in the
council, yeah, he said that he didn't believe it either when they phoned him the news. Pretty
much all of us believed that Sibelius destroyed it-yeah, it's very surreal."

Two weeks ago, the EMC received a call from a very excited Maikko Sibelius, the
composer's grand-daughter, who lives in Helsinki. She told them that she had found a large
manuscript in an old chest she had inherited from her mother, Katerina Sibelius, shortly before
she passed away in 1984. When she opened it, she saw the pages filled with music and knew
immediately that she had found something special.

When asked why they had waited so long for a press conference, vice president Olis
Wenzel told reporters, "We wanted to make sure that the document she gave us was the real
thing. You have to be completely sure about something this big-you don't want to disappoint
anyone."

In order to make sure that the score was authentic, the council sent for British
musicologist Thomas Hunter, one of the world's leading authorities on the life of Sibelius and
scholarship surrounding the small body of work attributed to him. For three days, he
painstakingly pored over the brittle pages of the manuscript, comparing it to the facsimilies of
other scores, even peering at individual notes through a magnifying glass.

"At first, I was skeptical," he says. "I had studied the late sketches of the composer at
Helsinki, especially the ones that had been attributed to the Eighth. This didn't look anything
like those sketches. It was only when I compared it to the facsimiles that I became certain. I'm
one hundred percent sure that the music is Sibelius. It's the eighth symphony. If you asked me
at gunpoint, I would say the same thing."

Currently, we don't know much about the music Sibelius wrote for his eighth symphony.
We're dying to find out. For now, Wenzel told us, they're keeping it a secret. He did say,
however, that the symphony is completely unlike anything that Sibelius ever wrote.

"It will change the way you thought about him," he explains.

There's still plenty of forensic work to be done with the manuscript, and once that's
finished, they will need to find a publisher. Deutsche Grammophon, Warner Music, and Sony have
already announced their intentions of recording the symphony as soon as possible. Dozens of
smaller labels are expected to follow suit.

However, some people may express the concern that Sibelius had never intended to let
anyone perform this music. He never told people he had completed it. He refused to show
anyone his sketches after 1926, and performance dates kept getting pushed back because he
would always tell conductors that he hadn't finished it. For many, the question of whether or not
Sibelius would have wanted the world to see this symphony could become an ethical one.

But for most people, the sheer enthusiasm of hearing this work for the first time will push
these issues aside.

"I can't wait to hear it performed," says Oscar Needler, Professor of Music Composition
at the Boston Conservatory. "An event like this only happens once in about every fifty years or
so, sometimes longer. We're fortunate to be alive when it does happen. But there's nothing like
this one. Trust me, people will be sleeping out in the streets to hear the Sibelius Eighth just like
they did with Maria Callas. It's an event when this happens. And I'm glad I'm here to remember
it."

We are, too. Welcome to the year of Sibelius.


I was literally crying when I read this. Can you believe it? It makes me so happy!!! 

Sibelius 8, here we come!

It's April Fools' Day...


----------



## Andreas (Apr 27, 2012)

Nice one. April fools to you, too.


----------



## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

I reported you to the mods for prematurely exposing the joke, Andreas--he might at least have fooled some people in different time zones, after all.


----------



## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Celloman said:


> Today on the NPR Music website:
> 
> *
> Sibelius Eighth Symphony Found in Attic*
> ...


Sounds like an April Fools Joke to me!!


----------



## Guest (Apr 1, 2015)

Wow! I'm skeptical. I would like some reference links please. Right now it's these few paragraphs on a chat page. We all know how reliable and factual the internet is.


Edit... Oh yeah. April Fool's. You got me.


----------



## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

With a lot of luck, the damn fair copy of the first movement, maybe some day in a couple of centuries. Striggio's sixty-part Mass, the most gigantic tangle of Renaissance polyphony, was discovered by a dedicated scholar in a library in 2005.


----------



## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

Wow, Sibelius' 8th was ALSO found? Because they just found Bach's long lost St. Mark's Passion
http://blogs.wfmt.com/offmic/2015/03/31/long-lost-bach-masterpiece-unearthed-hailed-as-major-discovery/
April 1st will always be remembered, from this day forward, as one of the greatest days for music


----------



## science (Oct 14, 2010)

This is the thread I've long been waiting for, because I need to confess that in fact I am John Corigliano. I'm sorry about hiding my identity these past years.


----------



## Couac Addict (Oct 16, 2013)

Was it down the back of the sofa? I bet it was down the back of the sofa.


----------



## csacks (Dec 5, 2013)

Did it included the missing parts of Schubert´s 8th, or it was only Sibelius´symphony?


----------



## Guest (Apr 1, 2015)

Blancrocher said:


> I reported you to the mods for prematurely exposing the joke, Andreas--he might at least have fooled some people in different time zones, after all.


Be sure to tell the teacher that he was chewing gum, too.


----------



## Kevin Pearson (Aug 14, 2009)

What do you take us for? Complete fools?


----------



## Cheyenne (Aug 6, 2012)

I forgot it was April's fools. I'll be crying in the corner over here.


----------



## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Now that we finally have Sibelius 8th, it is time to redouble our efforts to bring to light his other unpublished works. I am aware of rumours that, in the great tradition of Beethoven, Schubert, Mahler etc., Sibelius had been working on a 9th symphony. So far they have only located the first 3 and last 4 bars of the work but are convinced that it will be possible to reconstruct the entire symphony from them.


----------



## Haydn man (Jan 25, 2014)

Non believers, how dare you make fun of such an important discovery.
I am sorely disappointed in you all


----------



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Yeah, saw that about Bach's St. Mark Passion. It had fallen down behind his refrigerator.


----------



## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

Becca said:


> Now that we finally have Sibelius 8th, it is time to redouble our efforts to bring to light his other unpublished works. I am aware of rumours that, in the great tradition of Beethoven, Schubert, Mahler etc., Sibelius had been working on a 9th symphony. So far they have only located the first 3 and last 4 bars of the work but are convinced that it will be possible to reconstruct the entire symphony from them.


 Rumor has it the reconstruction will take into account the newly discovering scribblings on the back of empty Finnish Vodka bottles...


----------



## SimonNZ (Jul 12, 2012)

I can tell this thread was intended as a joke, but the latest issue of Gramophone actually has an article on work being done on a reconstructed/speculative Sibelius 8, to be premiered next year by (of all people) Gustavo Dudamel:

http://www.gramophone.co.uk/dudamel-conducts-sibelius-8th


----------



## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Celloman said:


> Today on the NPR Music website:
> 
> *
> Sibelius Eighth Symphony Found in Attic*
> ...




Of course I don't believe this! I just bought a CD copy of the Sibelius Eighth from a street vender in New York City (who assured me it is _not_ one of the notorious pirated editions)! It's a disc also featuring Havergal Brian's 33rd Symphony, both works performed by the Wales Symphony Orchestra, conducted by none other than Colin Wilson. If this aint the real thing, what is?


----------



## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Sibelius #8 has been reconstructed by others.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._8_(Sibelius)


----------



## Celloman (Sep 30, 2006)

I said it was a joke on the original post. If you select the invisible text at the bottom, you'll find it...

Why would I try to spread a shame-faced lie right here on Talk Classical? Come on, now!


----------



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Celloman said:


> Why would I try to spread a shame-faced lie right here on Talk Classical? Come on, now!


Uh...because it's fun? :lol:


----------



## Guest (Apr 2, 2015)

KenOC said:


> Yeah, saw that about Bach's St. Mark Passion. It had fallen down behind his refrigerator.


Better than what I heard about Beethoven's 10th. They say he left it at a lady friend's flat right before a nasty break up. Scholars maintain that, the next day, Beethoven wrote in his diary, "The world will have to survive with only 9." Can you imagine?


----------



## SimonNZ (Jul 12, 2012)

Celloman said:


> I said it was a joke on the original post. *If you select the invisible text at the bottom, you'll find it..*.
> 
> Why would I try to spread a shame-faced lie right here on Talk Classical? Come on, now!


Since learning of the widespread Satanic cult on TC who communicate this way I've been checking all posts for invisible text.

THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU!! ::flicking holy water:: THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU!!


----------



## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

Secular evil speaking here, we only fear living humans.


----------



## manyene (Feb 7, 2015)

Nice one, with lots of authentic-sounding detail. The giveaway is the word 'attic' in the heading. Too many such 'discoveries' in the past!

The fact that so many were taken in is a tribute to our fervent wish that the complete symphony should one day miraculously appear.


----------



## Andreas (Apr 27, 2012)

I have a feeling that if there was a copy/draft of a Sibelius 8th somewhere out there, it would perhaps best remain undiscovered. Expectations would be extremely high, I suppose, and if the work matched them, Sibelius himself surely would have published it. He had plenty of time to think it over, revise, rework, redesign. I can only assume, Sibelius came to the conclusion that whatever he had intended with his 8th, ultimately, it couldn't be done.


----------



## manyene (Feb 7, 2015)

Andreas,

I agree totally. I think in Tapiola, Sibelius had reached the ultimate in tone poems, while in the seventh Symphony he had taken on the ultimate target of writing a Symphony in one single movement, embracing all the elements of the traditional symphony. In an environment where listeners expect each new work to be an advancement on its predecessors (an assumption I find it difficult to accept, but exists anyway) it surely becomes more and more difficult for a great composer to meet these sort of standards. A few managed this kind of process: Sibelius decided not to bother, helped in any case by the financial cushion of a pension.


----------



## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Celloman said:


> I said it was a joke on the original post. If you select the invisible text at the bottom, you'll find it...
> 
> Why would I try to spread a shame-faced lie right here on Talk Classical? Come on, now!


I see! You manged to fool me though. Very well done.


----------

