Ten Years in the DOGHOUSE

Sample piece from Ten Years in the DOGHOUSE

Sibelius is all Nature
– T.W Adorno

He knew they were never his:
the notes he borrowed for his symphonies,
tones taken out of the air, abstracted
and then re-structured into music.

When he fed his last symphony to the fire
it was just restitution: as the flames
licked through the staves, a flock
of minims and quavers was flying
back to the woods around Ainola.

Go now to Finland; you will hear them
in the pizzicato of rain-drops, bird-song,
wolf-notes, a branch in the wind
whipping against your window,
in something calling deep in the forest's gloom.

– by Liam Aungier

Note: despite having worked on it for years, Jean Sibelius was never entirely satisfised with his Eight Symphony. He never allowed it to be performed or published and in 1945 in his house 'Ainola' he burned all manuscripts of the work. He never composed again.