Allan Pettersson

Biography

Pettersson, the youngest of four children of a violent, alcoholic blacksmith, was born at the manor of Granhammar in Västra Ryd parish in the province of Uppland, but grew up in poor circumstances in the Södermalm district of Stockholm, where he resided during his whole life. He once said of himself: "I wasn't born under a piano, I didn't spend my childhood with my father, the composer... no, I learnt how to work white-hot iron with the smith's hammer. My father was a smith who may have said no to God, but not to alcohol. My mother was a pious woman who sang and played with her four children."

In 1930, he began study of violin and viola, as well as counterpoint and harmony, at the conservatory of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music (Royal College of Music, Stockholm). He became a distinguished viola player, but also started composing songs and smaller chamber works in the 1930s. At the beginning of World War II he was studying the viola with Maurice Vieux in Paris. During the 1940s he worked as a violist in the Stockholm Concert Society (later the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra), but also studied composition privately with Karl-Birger Blomdahl, Tor Mann, and Otto Olsson. His production from this decade include the song cycle twenty-four Barefoot Songs (1943–1945) based on own poems and a dissonant concerto for violin and string quartet (1949). Latter work is influenced by Béla Bartók and Paul Hindemith.

In 1951, Pettersson created the experimental Seven Sonatas for two Violins. At the same time he also composed the first of his seventeen symphonies, which he left unfinished. This work has recently been recorded in a performing version prepared by trombonist and conductor Christian Lindberg. In September 1951, he went to Paris to study composition, having been a student of René Leibowitz, Arthur Honegger, Olivier Messiaen, and Darius Milhaud. Pettersson returned to Sweden at the end of 1952. The next year 1953 he was given the diagnosis rheumatoid arthritis. Pettersson about the symphonic output of this decade: "No one in the 1950s noticed, that I am always breaking up the structures, that I was creating a whole new symphonic form."

By the time of his fifth symphony, completed in 1962, his mobility and health were considerably compromised. In 1964, the government granted him a lifelong guaranteed income. It took four years to write the conceptual and style-defining sixth symphony (1963–1966). His greatest success came a few years later with his seventh symphony (1966–1967), which was premiered on 13 October 1968 in Stockholm Concert Hall with Antal Doráti conducting the Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra. The release of a recording of his seventh symphony with same conductor and orchestra in 1969 was a breakthrough, establishing his international reputation (Grammis 1970). The seventh and the eighth symphony (1968–1969) have received more recordings than his other works and are probably his best-known works. 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 ninth and longest symphony, beginning to write the condensed tenth (1972) from his sickbed. He recovered, but rheumatoid arthritis confined him most of the time to his apartment. He composed two related works about social protest and compassion, the twelfth symphony for mixed chorus and orchestra (1973–1974) to poems by Pablo Neruda with contemporary relevance and the cantata Vox Humana (1974) on texts by Latin American poets. In Autumn 1978, he moved to a state living quarters. During the prolific last decade of his life he also wrote a concerto for violin and orchestra (1977–1978, revised version 1980) written for the violinist Ida Haendel, a sixteenth symphony (1979) which features a bravura solo part for alto saxophone commissioned by Frederick L. Hemke, and an incomplete, posthumously discovered concerto for viola and orchestra (1979–1980). He also started to write a seventeenth symphony, but he died in Maria Magdalena parish, Stockholm, aged 68, before finishing it. Pettersson is buried in Högalid Church columbarium.

Music

Pettersson's writing is very strenuous and often has many simultaneous polyphonic lines; earlier works are close to tonality in their melodic approach, later works less so. His symphonies all end on common chords—major or minor chords—but tonality, which depends on some sense, however attenuated, of tonal progression, is found mostly in slower sections: e.g., the openings and endings of his 6th and 7th symphonies, and the end of his 9th. The musical argument seems to be determined, in faster sections, by motivic requirements far more than by harmonic resolution, as exemplified by the study score of the 7th symphony, pp. 20–44. Most of his symphonies are written in a single movement, making them all the more demanding. 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 in length from 22 to 70 minutes, are typically one-movement works made up of successive stretches of music of varying rhythms and figurations. The effect is like listening to a gigantic toccata or chorale prelude. Sometimes the effect is predominantly that of dance-music, as in the Symphony No. 9, which sounds for long stretches like a huge Mahler scherzo, sometimes the effect is grimmer, with march rhythms or angry declamation predominating, as in the Symphony No. 13.

Pettersson maintains the listener’s interest by varying the sounds and moods of the different sections, so some are more lyrical, others faster and more angry. The architecture of his symphonies is built on similar thematic material emerging at key points in the work (rather than classical statement-development-recapitulation), by rhythmic vitality and tonal progression. Even though his most symphonies are long single movement orchestral works, they are intensely compelling. The effect they convey is of great vitality and unstoppable momentum. Pettersson quoted songs from his own 24 Barefoot Songs in several of his compositions.

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

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. Rapport (1976, Symphony No. 7), Vid Urskogens rand (1977, Concerto No. 1 for String Orchestra), Krigsdanser (War Dance) (1979, Symphony No. 9).

The four orchestral sketches "... das Gesegnete, das Verfluchte" (1991) by Peter Ruzicka are a tribute to the life and work of Pettersson.

Discography

The selected discography includes the original format of the recording and releasing 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, [1]) based on recordings of 1984, 1988, 1991–1995, 2004.

Symphonies

Other works