Achim Breiling asks: >I read several times now that Sibelius had completed his 8th Symphony but >destroyed it in a rage of frustration. Is this true or a tale? The best (multi-volume) biography of Sibelius I know, by Erik Tawastsjerna, says that this author put the question to Sibelius directly, in the presence of Sibelius' wife, who turned to the composer and told him to tell the truth, that there was no 8th Symphony. It is likely that Sibelius worked on such a symphony for a long time without producing results that satisfied him and then destroyed his sketches. How "complete" these were will probably never be known. I'd say a symphony is not complete until the composer says it is. Jim Tobin