He now promised the symphony for October of that year, but almost immediately went back on his word. In summer 1932 Sibelius gave Koussevitzky new hope. The entire music world was eagerly awaiting the Eighth Symphony. In London the symphony was advertised as being down on the programme for spring 1933 and appearing shortly on disc. By June 1932 Olin Downes was requesting the printed score. Both received the same answer as before: the symphony was all in his head, but he still had not got a note on paper. Koussevitzky was not the only person eager to know how the work was progressing, for so were Wilhelm Hansen and Basil Cameron, conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Society in Britain, to whom Sibelius had promised the first European performance. In January he sent a telegram saying the work still would not be ready before the end of that season.
Koussevitzky expressed his thanks, but when he requested the orchestral parts for March, Sibelius began to have his doubts. Sibelius promised to deliver the goods in spring 1932. In August, when the season was already over, he finally wrote to Sibelius asking whether the new symphony was ready and whether it could be performed during the following season. Koussevitzky, impatiently waiting for the score, heard not a word from the composer, however. Spring 1931 found Sibelius once again on the way to Berlin, where he reported in a letter to Aino that the symphony was taking “great steps” forwards. Sibelius now faced the most nerve-wracking stage of his entire life. This was due to be performed in Boston in the course of the 1930-31 season already.
Sibelius declined, but Koussevitzky hoped at least to have the pleasure of a new orchestral work. Koussevitzky had originally asked Sibelius himself to conduct his works in Boston. In summer 1930 Sihelius did something rash: he promised the premiere rights for his as yet unborn symphony to the American conductor Serge Koussevitzky, the best Sibelius interpreter of the time. In December of the same year his Danish publisher Wilhelm Hansen tentatively inquired how the work was progressing and was now told in reply that the whole symphony in fact existed only in his head. In a letter to his wife, Aino, he reported that his work was going well and that his new symphony, the eighth, promised to he wonderful. With the orchestral Tempest suites ready in the bag, Sibelius travelled to Berlin at the beginning of 1928 to spend a few months composing there. To which Sibelius irritably replied that two of the movements were already on paper and that he had the rest worked out in his head. In autumn 19Z7 a great admirer of Sibelius, the American music critic Olin Downes, came to visit Sibelius and could not refrain from asking about the symphony.
The reports about the progress of the work are, however, extraordinary and to some extent conflicting. For in a letter dated Decemhe mentions a new orchestral work he has under way. Sibelius possibly began working on his eighth symphony in 1924 already, but in any case before the end of 1926.