Sibelius letters unearthed from document case
The granddaughter of the woman who inherited music copyist Paul Voigt's personal effects contacted Helsingin Sanomat. The search for the lost Eighth Symphony goes on.
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Jean Sibelius (1865-1957)
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By Vesa Sirén
A couple of weeks ago, Helsingin Sanomat cordially asked Finns answering to the surname of Kemppainen if they thought it might be possible that Jean Sibelius's famously lost (and apparently burned) Eighth Symphony - regarded in these latitudes as something approaching the classical music equivalent of the Holy Grail - could be lurking in a dusty corner of their attic.
The reason for the appeal was that in the executor's statement on the personal effects of one Paul Voigt (1867-1943), who was for several decades Sibelius's music copyist of choice, there is a reference to "a carboard box filled with music sheets".
In the absence of any other significant evidence of the symphony's survival, the question was whether this box might just contain a copy of some part or even all of the Eighth Symphony that somehow managed to escape from the flames of the fireplace in the living room at Sibelius's home of Ainola during the 1940s.
German-born Paul Voigt (see also separate background piece) was apparently unmarried and he left no heir on his death in 1943, but he passed his entire estate to Anni Kemppainen, wife of railwayman Jooseppi Kemppainen.
Thereafter, it was believed that the trail had gone cold, but in the wake of the earlier HS article, we are delighted to report that it has not, and that new information has come to light.
Thanks for this must go to Riitta Yrjänäinen, who is the only daughter of Anni Kemppainen's only son, Mauno Kemppainen.
Riitta went through her late parents' belongings after reading the accompanying Helsingin Sanomat article from October 30th.
"I'm sorry, but I haven't found any cardboard box that might have been handed down by Paul Voigt and that is full of music notation", she initially reported.
But a couple of hours later, the phone rang again with a very different tone to it.
"My interest was piqued, and I went through my father's things rather more carefully. In one black document case was an envelope with the words 'Important papers' on it, and inside were five letters written in German, from Sibelius to Voigt."
Wow, breathed the Sibelius scholars in unison.
Until now, for all the length of their relationship, the only known examples of correspondence between Sibelius and his trusted copyist were a few scraps taken from Ainola and deposited in the National Archives, and one letter that researcher Markku Hartikainen managed to discover from a god-daughter of the Kemppainens.
The letter had been given to the child, apparently as a gift.
On the basis of earlier discoveries, it has been established (as best these things can be "established" given the circumstances) that Sibelius had completed the first movement of the Eighth Symphony and it had gone to Voigt for copying in the late summer of 1933.
An invoice for the work - 23 pages at 8 markka per page - by the copyist still exists from September 1933.
"Largo sofort anschliessen" [The Largo follows on directly], replies Sibelius in a drafted thank-you note in German scribbled on the back of the accompanying letter from Voigt, and the composer observes that the entire project will run to about eight times what Voigt has copied out thus far.
The actual letter (more or less identical to the draft) that Sibelius mailed back to the copyist on September 9th, 1933 was among those now found by Riitta Yrjänäinen.
The other pieces of correspondence she has unearthed between the two men have not hitherto been seen by Sibelius scholars in any shape or form (i.e. not even as rough drafts), which rather explains why they were drooling a little as they pored over them.
Dating from 1927 is a thank-you note from Sibelius to his long-serving scribe for excellent work, and no wonder: Paul Voigt's handwriting was quite supernaturally clear and precise.
On August 30th, 1933 (i.e. shortly before the invoice and reply referred to above), Sibelius asks Voigt to make a few small amendments, for example to a fermata, and this points almost certainly to the Eighth Symphony, as it is confirmed in the body of Sibelius's later response to his receipt of the first movement as copied out by Voigt.
One undated letter - but written in a hand similar to that of Sibelius in his later years - really does tickle the imagination: "Bitte weder den Titel noch chortext zu schreiben" [Please do not write out the choral text or the title of the work].
Whoa! What choral text are we talking about here?
There has sometimes been speculation that the Eighth Symphony was to be a choral symphony, but during the 1930s Sibelius also made arrangements of some of his older works in which there was a chorus present.
Clearly Sibelius and Voigt also had something going on between them on October 7th, 1938, some five years after that first movement.
Sibelius urges Voigt to hurry, and gives instructions on a number of details.
Was this once again the Eighth Symphony, or could it as easily have been the new arrangements of the Finlandia Hymn, Masonic Ritual Music, or Andante Festivo, all of which Sibelius was working on during that particular year?
The riddle of the missing Eighth is not going to be solved by these letters alone, however pleasing it is that they have now seen the light of day.
But if the correspondence turns up after an hour or two of diligent searching, is it not possible that the actual music might be unearthed?
"I would have assumed that if Sibelius himself wanted to destroy his work, then Paul Voigt, too, would have been obliged to get rid of his own material at the same time", Yrjänäinen observes.
Then again, it is also perfectly possible that the Kemppainens could have lost the documents in the passing of the years, although there have not been many changes of address in the family - moving house is always a risky business as far as old documents and possessions are concerned.
In this case, the coast is pretty clear: the Kemppainens moved from their home in Helsinki's Meilahti to Käpylä in 1942 (before Voigt's death), and thereafter only changed apartments the once, inside the same condominium.
This apartment is still owned by the family.
"During the move, the attic and the cellar storage spaces were cleaned and swept, and it is naturally possible that things were thrown out or simply mislaid at that stage", considers Yrjänäinen.
Certainly there was little likelihood of the letters ever being casually tossed out, because Anni and her husband Jooseppi were well aware of their value - they gave one as a present to a god-daughter, after all.
But what became of the "box of music sheets"?
"I do have a very vague memory that as a child I would have seen some fancy-looking musical notation, and maybe some missing notation might have been mentioned, but there was no talk of anything concrete like a whole box of the material", says Yrjänäinen.
"My father had a lot of respect for Paul Voigt, and I believe that any such box would have been shown to me if it was kept and was around somewhere."
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 14.11.2011
More on this subject:
 Is this the sound of Sibelius's lost Eighth Symphony?
Jean Sibelius's own comments on his Eighth Symphony
BACKGROUND: The loneliness of the long-serving copyist
VESA SIRÉN / Helsingin Sanomat
vesa.siren@hs.fi
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