Sibelius manuscript too pricey for Finns

Unnamed telephone bidder pays £42,000 for handwritten 1908 score

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An orchestral score for the work Night Ride and Sunrise dating from 1908 and handwritten by Finnish composer Jean Sibelius (1865-1957) was sold at auction for £42,000 at Sotheby's in London on Friday.
      In stark comparison with Sotheby's own estimate of GBP 10,000 to 15,000, the final price - including all taxes and costs - was estimated to be as high as EUR 85,000.
      This manuscript now became public for the first time. It was sold to an unnamed telephone bidder who ultimately raised the price beyond reach of the Helsinki University Library.
     
As the major holder of Sibelius's manuscripts, Helsinki University Library was seriously trying to buy the score. Moreover, the manuscript would be needed by the Sibelius scholars who are working on a critical edition that contains all the surviving complete compositions of Sibelius as well as all of his own arrangements.
      "The price kept going up, and I had to abandon the chase. Even though we had received financial support for the auction from a private person as well as from a business source, we simply could not afford it", Library Director Kai Ekholm of Helsinki University Library commented with regret.
     
There was still hope in the morning when Ekholm and acting editor-in-chief of the critical edition project Timo Virtanen examined the manuscript.
      "The manuscript was in no good shape. There was some dirt on it, and children had scribbled over it. We were hoping that this would reduce the price", said Ekholm.
      The manuscript is supposed to be the version that Sibelius sent to Alexander Siloti, who conducted the very first performance of the composition in St. Petersburg in January 1909. Its later whereabouts are unknown.
     
The composition itself is well-known, as Sibelius sent a separate re-written version of it to his publisher. This orchestral work has even been recorded several times.
      However, these facts are no consolation to the researchers. While compiling the critical edition of Night Ride they want to use all original sources. Without this manuscript, the chain of sources remains imperfect.
     
"The manuscript is unclean and partly fragmentary, but it is valuable in terms of research", says Timo Virtanen.
      Virtanen and Ekholm intend to send the buyer of the manuscript a letter asking for a permission to have a look at the material as well as to digitize it. All depends on the willingness of the new owner to cooperate in a scholarly, critical edition of Jean Sibelius's works.
     
"The question is: Should the government have a special fund for the purchase of national heritage items in cases like this?" Ekholm contemplates.
      "At least now we know that the value of the dozens of Sibelius manuscripts that were transferred to Helsinki University by the Sibelius estate in 1982 has doubled if not tripled", said Ekholm.


Links:
  Helsinki University Library Research Projects. Jean Sibelius Works - A Critical Edition

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