Allan Pettersson wrote his Symphony No. 9 in 1970.
The symphony is his last composition preceding a nine-month stay in hospital (starting September 1970); it is also his longest symphony. There is one movement, though it divides into a number of smaller sections that follow each other with at most nominal pause but usually none. The notes to the cpo recording identify 17 such sections, partially for analysis.
Much though not all of the material in the symphony is based on the ascending scale motif heard at the very beginning, played by bassoons, violas and cellos. The concluding bars of the symphony are described by Peter Ruzicka as a Canto whose main theme goes from violins and cellos to violas in unison, and which ends in a slow cadence into F major.
Pettersson dedicated the symphony to Sergiu Comissiona and the Gothenburg Symphony, who premiered it on 18 February 1971 and had commissioned it for the 350th Anniversary of the Founding of the City of Gothenburg.
The miniature score was published in 1989 by Nordiska Musikforlaget of Stockholm and runs to 385 pages.