The Eighth Symphony was Jean Sibelius's final major compositional project, occupying him intermittently from the mid-1920s until around 1938. How much of the symphony was completed is unknown; Sibelius repeatedly refused to release it for performance, though he promised the premiere to several leading conductors. Following the success of his Seventh Symphony of 1924, it was expected that his symphonic flow would continue, but after the tone poem Tapiola of 1926, his published output was confined to minor pieces and revisions to earlier works. The Eighth Symphony's destruction was made known after Sibelius's death in 1957, but in the 1990s, while cataloguing the composer's many notebooks and sketches, scholars speculated that fragments of music from the lost symphony may have survived. Several short manuscript sketches have been tentatively identified with the Eighth, three of which (comprising less than three minutes of music) were recorded by the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra in 2011. The prospect of further reconstruction has generally been discounted; the propriety of publicly performing music that Sibelius himself had rejected has also been questioned.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._8_(Sibelius)
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1660:
A woman appeared on stage as a professional actress in England for the first time, most often credited to Margaret Hughes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Hughes
1813:
Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 (audio featured) premiered in Vienna with the composer himself conducting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._7_(Beethoven)
1963:
After being hit by a lightning strike while in a holding pattern, Pan Am Flight 214 crashed near Elkton, Maryland, US, killing all 81 people on board. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Am_Flight_214
1987:
A man shot and killed eight people at the Australia Post building in Melbourne, before jumping to his death. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Street_massacre
2013:
After a fatal car accident in the Little India region of Singapore, angry mobs of passersby attacked the bus involved and emergency vehicles, the first riot in the country in over 40 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Little_India_riot
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
cheeky: 1. (informal) Impudent; impertinent; impertinently bold, often in a way that is regarded as endearing or amusing. 2. (informal, Britain, of food and drink) Eaten or drunk as an indulgence. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cheeky
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
Whence, if ever, shall come the actuality Of a voice speaking the mind's knowing, The sunlight bright on the green windowshade, And the self articulate, affectionate, and flowing, Ease, warmth, light, the utter showing, When in the white bed all things are made. --Delmore Schwartz https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Delmore_Schwartz