Re: Re: Re: Re: Sibelius Symphonies/Tuba parts


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Posted by Urbie Watrous on August 21, 2000 at 14:28:42:

In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Sibelius Symphonies/Tuba parts posted by Anthony on August 21, 2000 at 06:06:08:

<< Sibelius stopped writting completely for any instruments eventually, due to his raging alcoholism. I don't think he wrote anything the last 40 years of his life. >>

It's not all that clear why Sibelius was silent for his last few decades -- alcohol certainly played a role, but he was a heavy drinker his whole adult life. Part of it was physicaly -- Sibelius's hands shook a lot in his later years.

Santeri Levas's book (I forget the title offhand) shed a lot of light on Sibelius's last years, but even Levas wasn't entirely able to explain the silence. He corroborates that Sibelius did (contrary to some authors' opinions) spend at least 15 years or so working on an 8th symphony but was never able to complete it. Many have speculated that there never was an 8th symphony, but Levas is pretty convincing that there was, but that Sibelius burned the manuscript in 1945 and felt relieved afterwards that his struggle was over. Levas states that even after that, however, Sibelius returned to the idea of completing the work, but that it was pretty much hopeless at that point. He says that alcohol didn't have much effect on Sibelius's mental faculties overall, though.

Urb


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