Episode Details

Jean Sibelius was Finland's greatest composer and a national symbol so powerful that the Finnish government paid him a lifelong pension. He spent over thirty years working on an Eighth Symphony — and then burned the manuscript and every sketch associated with it. He lived another twenty-five years after the bonfire, composing nothing, saying almost nothing about why he stopped. The silence of Sibelius is one of the great mysteries in the history of music.

This episode traces Sibelius from his Finnish childhood through the symphonies that made him a national icon, the increasing creative isolation, and the burning of the Eighth that ended his compositional life.

• Sibelius's emergence as Finland's musical voice during the struggle for independence from Russia
• The seven symphonies and Finlandia — the works that made him an international figure
• The government pension, the alcoholism, and the decades of struggle with the Eighth Symphony
• The burning of the manuscript and twenty-five years of silence that nobody has fully explained