Allan Pettersson

Gustaf Allan Pettersson (19 September 1911 – 20 June 1980) was a Swedish composer and violist. He is considered one of the 20th century's most important Swedish composers and was described as one of the last great symphonists, often compared to Gustav Mahler. Pettersson's music has a very distinctive sound and can hardly be confused with that of any other 20th-century composer. In the final decade of his life, his symphonies (typically one-movement works) developed an international following, particularly in Germany and Sweden. Of these, his best known work is Symphony No. 7. His music later found success in the United States. Gustaf Allan Pettersson was the youngest of four children. His father, Karl Viktor Pettersson (1875–1952), was a violent, alcoholic blacksmith, in Stockholm's Södermalm district, where he lived throughout his life. He once said: With his parents and siblings, Pettersson lived in a damp, one-room basement apartment with bars on the window. Through strict self-discipline and with the help of music, Pettersson freed himself from his social misery and difficult family circumstances. He later made two unsuccessful attempts to enter the conservatory of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music.

In 1930, Pettersson began studying violin and later the viola, as well as counterpoint and harmony, at the conservatory of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music (Royal College of Music, Stockholm).

In September 1951, Pettersson went to Paris to study composition and was a student of composers René Leibowitz, Arthur Honegger, Olivier Messiaen, and Darius Milhaud. He returned to Sweden at the end of 1952. In the early 1950s, he was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. (Other sources say 1963.) In 1964, the government granted him a lifelong guaranteed income. His greatest success came a few years later with his (1966), which premiered on 13 October 1968 in Stockholm Concert Hall with Antal Doráti conducting the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra. A recording of his seventh symphony, with the same conductor and orchestra, was released in 1969. It was a breakthrough, establishing his international reputation, and he received two Swedish Grammis in 1970. The conductors Antal Doráti and Sergiu Comissiona premiered and made first recordings of several of Pettersson's symphonies and contributed to his rise to fame during the 1970s.

Pettersson was hospitalized for nine months in 1970, soon after the composition of his Symphony No. 9, his longest symphony. He began writing the condensed Symphony No. 10 (1972) from his sickbed. Pettersson was admitted to Karolinska Hospital due to a life-threatening kidney ailment. He recovered, but rheumatoid arthritis largely confined him to his fourth-floor apartment in a building with no elevator. Pettersson was awarded the Litteris et Artibus, a Swedish royal medal established in 1853, in 1977. In autumn 1978, (Other sources state 1976.) Like Mahler, he also often includes music from his songs in his symphonies, as well as the second violin concerto. Pettersson, an eccentric symphonist, was not an avant-gardist. His kinetic and organic development of musical matter uses traditional means of expression. Basic motifs are constantly being changed and developed. Pettersson's writing is very demanding, often featuring many simultaneous polyphonic lines. His symphonies end on common major or minor chords —tonality, though often attenuated, is found mostly in slower sections. This is evident in the openings and endings of his 6th and 7th symphonies, and the end of his 9th. Overwhelmingly serious in tone, often dissonant, his music rises to ferocious climaxes, relieved, especially in his later works, by lyrical oases ("").

Pettersson's music has a very distinctive sound and can hardly be confused with that of any other 20th-century composer. His symphonies, which range from 25 to 70 minutes long, are typically one-movement works, with the exceptions of No. 3 (in four movements) and No. 8 (in two). Pettersson's music is often demanding both on performers and listeners.

Pettersson quoted songs from his own 24 Barefoot Songs in several of his compositions.

Musicologist Ivanka Stoïanova designed a theory of musical space about Pettersson's music.

Most of his music has now been recorded at least once and much of it is now available in published scores.

Works Pettersson began composing songs and smaller chamber works in the 1930s.

His production from the 1940s includes the song cycle 24 Barefoot Songs (1943–1945) based on his poems and a dissonant concerto for violin and string quartet (1949), which is influenced by Béla Bartók and Paul Hindemith. Pettersson soon found his own compositional style. In 1951, he created the experimental Seven Sonatas for two violins. At the same time, he composed the first of his 17 symphonies, which he left unfinished. This work has been recorded in a performing version prepared by trombonist and conductor Christian Lindberg in 2011. Pettersson about the symphonic output of the 1950s: It took four years to write the conceptual and style-defining Symphony No. 6 (1963–1966). His Symphony No. 7 and Symphony No. 8 (1968–1969) have been recorded more than his other works and are probably his best-known. In the 1970s, he composed two related works about social protest and compassion, the Symphony No. 12 for mixed chorus and orchestra (1973–1974) to poems by Nobel laureate in Literature Pablo Neruda with contemporary relevance and the cantata Vox Humana (1974) on texts by Latin American poets. During the prolific last decade of his life, he also wrote a concerto for violin and orchestra (1977–1978, 1980) written for the violinist Ida Haendel, a Symphony No. 16 (1979) which features a bravura solo part for alto saxophone commissioned by American saxophonist Frederick L. Hemke, and an incomplete, posthumously discovered concerto for viola and orchestra (1979–1980).

Legacy In 1968–1969, conductor and composer Antal Doráti arranged eight of Pettersson's Barefoot Songs as full-scale orchestral songs.

Choreographer Birgit Cullberg produced three ballets based on Pettersson's music. (1976, Symphony No. 7), (1977, Concerto No. 1 for String Orchestra), (War Dance) (1979, Symphony No. 9).

The four orchestral sketches "" (1991) by Peter Ruzicka are a tribute to Pettersson's life and work, quoting sketches of his unfinished Symphony No. 17.

Roy Andersson used the finale of Symphony No. 7 in his short film World of Glory .

After Pettersson's death, the (International Allan Pettersson Society) issued six yearbooks, Classic Produktion Osnabrück (CPO) began recording his complete works, and a series of concerts (in 1994–1995) programmed almost all of them.

In 2002, a Swedish Allan Pettersson Society was founded.

Awards 1970 , No. 741 1977 Litteris et Artibus 1979 (Honorary Professorship of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music)

Discography The selected discography lists recordings in their original format and release label. Some of the LP releases have been reissued on CD. A 12-CD pack of the complete symphonies of Allan Pettersson has been produced by CPO (Classic Produktion Osnabrück) based on recordings of 1984, 1988, 19911995, 2004. In 2023, a cycle of all Pettersson symphonies produced by BIS Records was completed.

Symphonies Symphony No. 1 (1951) (incomplete) Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, Christian Lindberg (performing version by Christian Lindberg) (BIS CD) Symphony No. 2 (19521953) Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Stig Westerberg (Swedish Society Discofil LP and CD) BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Alun Francis (CPO CD) Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, Christian Lindberg (BIS CD) Symphony No. 3 (19541955) Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Saarbrücken, Alun Francis (CPO CD) Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, Leif Segerstam (BIS CD) Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, Christian Lindberg (BIS CD) Symphony No. 4 (19581959) Göteborgs Symfoniker, Sergiu Comissiona (BIS LP) Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Saarbrücken, Alun Francis (CPO CD) Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, Christian Lindberg (BIS CD) Symphony No. 5 (19601962) Berliner Sibelius Orchester, Andreas Peer Kähler (Bluebell LP and CD) Malmö Symphony Orchestra, Moshe Atzmon (BIS CD) Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Saarbrücken, Alun Francis (CPO CD) Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, Christian Lindberg (BIS CD) Symphony No. 6 (19631966) Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, Okko Kamu (CBS LP) Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Manfred Trojahn (CPO CD) Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, Christian Lindberg (BIS CD) Symphony No. 7 (19661967) Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Antal Doráti (Swedish Society Discofil LP and CD/London LP) (Grammis 1970) Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Sergiu Comissiona (Caprice CD) Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg, Gerd Albrecht (CPO CD) Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, Leif Segerstam (BIS CD) Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, Christian Lindberg (BIS CD) Symphony No. 8 (19681969) Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Sergiu Comissiona (Polar LP and Deutsche Grammophon LP) Radio-Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Thomas Sanderling (CPO CD) Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg, Gerd Albrecht (Orfeo CD) Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, Leif Segerstam (BIS CD) Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, Christian Lindberg (BIS CD) Symphony No. 9 (1970) Göteborgs Symfoniker, Sergiu Comissiona (Philips LP) Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Alun Francis (CPO CD) Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, Christian Lindberg (BIS CD) (Grammis 2015) Symphony No. 10 (19711972) Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Antal Doráti (EMI LP) NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover, Alun Francis (CPO CD) Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, Leif Segerstam (BIS CD) Symphony No. 11 (19711973) Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, Leif Segerstam (BIS CD) NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover, Alun Francis (CPO CD) Symphony No. 12 "" ("The Dead of the Square") (19731974) Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Stockholm Philharmonic Chorus, Uppsala University Chamber Choir, Carl Rune Larsson (Caprice LP and CD) Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Swedish Radio Choir, Eric Ericson Choir, Manfred Honeck (CPO CD) Swedish Radio Choir, Eric Ericson Chamber Choir, Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, Christian Lindberg (BIS CD) Symphony No. 13 (1976) BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Alun Francis (CPO CD) Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, Christian Lindberg (BIS CD) Symphony No. 14 (1978) Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Sergiu Comissiona (Phono Suecia CD) Radio-Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Johan M. Arnell (CPO CD) Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, Christian Lindberg (BIS CD) Symphony No. 15 (1978) Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Peter Ruzicka (CPO CD) Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, Leif Segerstam (BIS CD) Symphony No. 16 (1979) Frederick L. Hemke (Alto saxophone), Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Yuri Ahronovitch (Swedish Society Discofil LP and CD) John-Edward Kelly (Alto saxophone), Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Saarbrücken, Alun Francis (CPO CD) Jörgen Pettersson (Alto saxophone), Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, Christian Lindberg (BIS CD) Symphony No. 17 (1980) (fragment) Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, Christian Lindberg (BIS SACD-2290, 2019)

Other works Two Elegies (1934) Martin Gelland (violin), Lennart Wallin (piano) (BIS CD) 6 Songs (1935) (text by Gunnar Björling et al.). Erik Saedén (baritone), Arnold Östman (piano) (Swedish Society Discofil LP and CD) 8 Barefoot Songs orchestrated by Antal Doráti Anders Larsson (baritone), Nordic Chamber Orchestra, Christian Lindberg (BIS CD) Lamento for piano (1945) Volker Banfield (CPO CD) Lennart Wallin (BIS CD) Concerto No. 1 for violin and string quartet (1949) Ulf Hoelscher (violin), Mandelring-Quartett (CPO CD) Concerto No. 1 for string orchestra (19491950) Musica Vitae, Petter Sundkvist (Caprice CD) Nordic Chamber Orchestra, Christian Lindberg (BIS CD) Deutsche Kammerakademie Neuss, Johannes Goritzki (CPO CD) Seven Sonatas for two violins (1951) Duo Gelland (BIS CD) Concerto No. 2 for string Orchestra (1956) Musica Vitae, Petter Sundkvist (Caprice CD) Nordic Chamber Orchestra, Christian Lindberg (BIS CD) Deutsche Kammerakademie Neuss, Johannes Goritzki (CPO CD) Concerto No. 3 for string Orchestra (19561957) Nordic Chamber Orchestra, Christian Lindberg (BIS CD) Deutsche Kammerakademie Neuss, Johannes Goritzki (CPO CD) Symphonic Movement (1973) (commissioned by Swedish Radio TV1 channel for a film essay by Boris Engström) BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Alun Francis (CPO CD) Vox Humana (1974) Marianne Mellnas (soprano), Margot Rodin (alto), Sven-Erik Alexandersson (tenor), Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Swedish Radio Chorus, Stig Westerberg (BIS CD) Concerto No. 2 for violin and orchestra (19771978) Ida Haendel (violin), Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Herbert Blomstedt (Caprice LP and CD) Isabelle van Keulen (violin), Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Thomas Dausgaard (CPO CD) Ulf Wallin (violin), Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, Christian Lindberg (BIS SACD-2290, 2019) Concerto for viola and orchestra (19791980) Nobuko Imai (viola), Malmö Symphony Orchestra, (BIS CD)

Writings