Pettersson in 1957, Swedish Press Archive, Foto: Bertil S-son Åberg
Gustaf Allan Pettersson[needs IPA] (19 September 1911 – 20 June 1980) was a Swedish composer andviolist. 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 toGustav Mahler.[1][2][3][4]: 3 [5] His music can hardly be confused with other 20th-century works. In the final decade of his life, hissymphonies (typically one-movement works) developed an international following, particularly in Germany and Sweden.[6] Of these, his best known work is Symphony No. 7. His music later found success in the United States.[7]: 7 The conductorsAntal Doráti andSergiu Comissiona premiered and recorded several of his symphonies. Pettersson's song cycleBarefoot Songs influenced many of his compositions. Doráti arranged eight of theBarefoot Songs.Birgit Cullberg produced three ballets based on Pettersson's music.
Born on 19 September 1911,[8] Gustaf Allan Pettersson was the youngest of four children.[9] His father, Karl Viktor Pettersson (1875–1952),[10][11] was a violent, alcoholic blacksmith,[12] and his mother, Ida Paulina (née Svenson) (1876–1960), was a dressmaker.[10][11] Pettersson was born atGranhammar manor in Västra Ryd parish in theUppland province of Sweden. He grew up poor[13] in Stockholm'sSödermalm district,[14] where he lived during his whole life.[3] He once said:
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.[15]
With his parents and siblings, Pettersson lived in a damp, one-room basement apartment with bars on the window.[12][16] When he was 10, he bought a cheap violin with money he earned from selling Christmas cards[13] and taught himself to play it.[12] Even the beatings he received from his father and the threat of reform school could not diminish his interest in music.[17] Through strict self-discipline and with the help of music, Pettersson freed himself from his social misery and difficult family circumstances.[18] Aged 14, he finished elementary school and took up full-time practice on the violin.[19][10] He later made two unsuccessful attempts to enter theRoyal Swedish Academy of Music's conservatory.[20]
In 1930, Pettersson began studying violin and later the viola, as well ascounterpoint andharmony, at the Royal Swedish Academy of Music's conservatory (Royal College of Music, Stockholm).[8] At the beginning of World War II, he was in Paris, studying the viola with the French violistMaurice Vieux. Pettersson won theJenny Lind scholarship prize in 1938, using it to study abroad.[21][22]
During the 1940s, Pettersson worked as a violist in the Stockholm Concert Society (later theRoyal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra).[8] He also studied composition with the composer and conductorKarl-Birger Blomdahl, orchestration with the conductorTor Mann, and counterpoint with organist and composerOtto Olsson.[10][23] In 1943, he married a physiotherapist, Gudrun Tyra Charlotta Gustafsson (1921–2017).[10][24]
In September 1951, Pettersson went to Paris to study composition and was a student of composersRené Leibowitz,Arthur Honegger,Olivier Messiaen, andDarius Milhaud.[10][25][16] He returned to Sweden at the end of 1952. In the early 1950s, he was diagnosed withrheumatoid arthritis.[26][27][a] He gave up playing the viola and began devoting his life to composition.[13] In 1954, he received an annual state composition grant for his first time.[28]
By the time of his Symphony No. 5, completed in 1962, his mobility and health were compromised considerably.[29][30] In 1964, the government granted him a lifelong guaranteed income.[31] His greatest success came a few years later with hisSymphony No. 7 [sv;nl] (1966),[12] which premiered on 13 October 1968 inStockholm Concert Hall withAntal Doráti conducting the Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra.[32] 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 SwedishGrammis in 1970.[4]: 7 The conductors Antal Doráti andSergiu Comissiona premiered and made first recordings of several of Pettersson's symphonies and contributed to his rise to fame during the 1970s.[33][34]
Pettersson was hospitalized for nine months in 1970, soon after the composition of hisSymphony No. 9, his longest symphony. He began writing the condensed Symphony No. 10 (1972) from his sickbed.[35][36] Pettersson was admitted toKarolinska Hospital, because of a life-threatening kidney ailment.[37] He recovered, but rheumatoid arthritis confined him most of the time to his fourth-floor apartment in a building with no elevator.[b][39][40][12] In 1975, after a dispute about a change in a concert program for an American tour, the Stockholm Philharmonic was forbidden to perform works by Pettersson "for all time". The ban was lifted in 1976.[41][42] Pettersson was awarded theLitteris et Artibus, a Swedish royal medal established in 1853, in 1977.[10] In autumn 1978,[c] he moved to a state living quarters.[43][40] He began writing his seventeenth symphony, but died, at age 68,[44] in Stockholm's Maria Magdalena parish before finishing it. He is buried in theHögalid Churchcolumbarium.[45][46][8]
Pettersson's music can be compared toMahler's symphonic output, especially in the magnificent design and the passion and dynamism.[47] The symphonic eccentric Pettersson is not anavant-gardist.[3] His kinetic[48] and organic development of musical matter[49] uses traditional means of expression.[50] Basicmotifs are constantly being changed and developed.[3] Pettersson's writing is very strenuous and often has many simultaneouspolyphonic lines.[51][52] His symphoniesend on common major or minor chords[4]: 5 —but tonality, which depends on some sense, however attenuated, of tonal progression, is found mostly in slower sections. This can be shown at 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 ("lyrische Inseln").[53][18][54]
Pettersson's music has a very distinctive sound and can hardly be confused with that of any other 20th-century composer.[55] His symphonies, which range from 22 to 70 minutes long,[56] are typically one-movement works.[57][7]: 4 Pettersson's music is demanding on performers and listeners.[58]
Pettersson quoted songs from his own 24Barefoot Songs in several of his compositions.[59][60]
Musicologist Ivanka Stoïanova designed a theory of musical space about Pettersson's music.[61][62]
Most of his music has now been recorded at least once and much of it is now available in published scores.[d]
Pettersson began composing songs and smaller chamber works in the 1930s.[63]
His production from the 1940s includes thesong cycle twenty-fourBarefoot Songs (1943–1945) based on his poems and adissonant[64] concerto for violin andstring quartet (1949), which is influenced byBéla Bartók andPaul Hindemith.[65][66] Pettersson soon found his own compositional style.[3]In 1951, he created the experimentalSeven Sonatas for two Violins. At the same time, he composed the first of his seventeensymphonies, which he left unfinished. This work has been recorded in a performing version prepared by trombonist and conductorChristian Lindberg in 2011.[67]
Pettersson about the symphonic output of the 1950s:
No one in the 1950s noticed, that I am always breaking up the structures, that I was creating a whole new symphonic form.[68][69]
It took four years to write the conceptual and style-definingSymphony No. 6 (1963–1966).[70] His Symphony No. 7 andSymphony 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 Literature Nobel laureatePablo Neruda with contemporary relevance[e] and thecantataVox 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,rev. 1980) written for the violinistIda Haendel,[72] a Symphony No. 16 (1979) which features a bravura solo part for alto saxophone commissioned by American saxophonistFrederick L. Hemke,[73] and an incomplete, posthumously discovered concerto for viola and orchestra (1979–1980).[74]
In 1968–1969, conductor and composer Antal Doráti arranged eight of Pettersson'sBarefoot Songs as full-scale orchestral songs.[75]
ChoreographerBirgit 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).[76]
The four orchestral sketches "... das Gesegnete, das Verfluchte" (1991) byPeter Ruzicka are a tribute to Pettersson's life and work, quoting sketches of his unfinished Symphony No. 17.[77]
After Pettersson's death, theInternationale Allan Pettersson Gesellschaft (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.[23][79][80]
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) based on recordings of 1984, 1988, 1991–1995, 2004. In 2023, a cycle of all Pettersson symphonies produced byBIS Records was completed.[82][83]
Marianne Mellnas (Soprano), Margot Rodin (Alto), Sven-Erik Alexandersson (Tenor), Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Swedish Radio Chorus, Stig Westerberg (BIS CD)OCLC778517932
Concerto No. 2 for Violin and Orchestra (1977–1978)[90]
Pettersson, Allan (1952). "Dissonance—douleur".Musique Contemporaine—Revue Internationale (in French).4–6. Paris:235–236.OCLC702671430.
—— (1988) [1952]. "Dissonance—douleur = Dissonanz—Schmerz". In Im Auftrag der Internationalen Allan-Pettersson-Gesellschaft von Michael Kube (ed.).Allan Pettersson Jahrbuch. 1988 (in French and German). Saarbrücken: Pfau Verlag. pp. 7–13.ISBN978-3-89727-194-4.
—— (1955). "Den konstnärliga lögnen".Musiklivet (in Swedish).28 (2). Stockholm: Sveriges körförbund:26–27.ISSN0027-4836.
——; et al. (1989b). "Allan Petterssons Boykott der Stockholmer Philharmoniker 1975". In Im Auftrag der Internationalen Allan-Pettersson-Gesellschaft von Michael Kube (ed.).Allan Pettersson Jahrbuch. 1989 (in German). Saarbrücken: Pfau Verlag. pp. 10–44.ISBN978-3-89727-195-1.
—— (1989a). "Randnotizen zur 10. Symphonie [Karolinska Hospital Diary 1970–1971]". In Im Auftrag der Internationalen Allan-Pettersson-Gesellschaft von Michael Kube (ed.).Allan Pettersson Jahrbuch. 1989 (in German). Saarbrücken: Pfau Verlag. pp. 45–48.ISBN978-3-89727-195-1.
^abcOlsson, Per-Henning (2018).Pettersson: Symphony No. 5 & 7(PDF) (booklet). Christian Lindberg, Norrköping Symphony Orchestra. Åkersberga, Sweden: BIS-2240.OCLC1034638954.Archived(PDF) from the original on 20 April 2021. Retrieved20 April 2021.
^Lambton, Christopher (7 November 1993). "Mahler and a Swedish imitator".The Times. London.
^abOlsson, Per-Henning (2014).Pettersson: Symphony No. 4 & 16(PDF) (booklet). Christian Lindberg, Norrköping Symphony Orchestra. Åkersberga, Sweden: BIS-2110.OCLC908174896.Archived(PDF) from the original on 20 April 2021. Retrieved20 April 2021.
^abcdIm Auftrag der Internationalen Allan-Pettersson-Gesellschaft von Michael Kube, ed. (1986). "Stichworte zur Biographie".Allan Pettersson Jahrbuch. 1986a (in German). Saarbrücken: Pfau Verlag. p. 7.ISBN978-3-89727-192-0.
^Pettersson, Allan; Hammar, Sigvard (5 March 1972). "Musiken gör livet uthärdligt [intervju]".Dagens Nyheter (in Swedish). cited inMeyer, Andreas K. W. (1994).Pettersson: Symphony No. 3 & 4 (booklet). Alun Francis and Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Saarbrücken. Georgsmarienhütte, Germany: CPO 999 223–2. p. 23.OCLC33168153.
^Meyer, Andreas K. W. (1992).Pettersson: Symphony No. 7(PDF) (booklet). Gerd Albrecht, Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg. Georgsmarienhütte, Germany: CPO 999 190–2. p. 10.OCLC716455566.Archived(PDF) from the original on 10 May 2021. Retrieved8 May 2021.
^abKube, Michael (2005). "Pettersson, Allan, Würdigung". In Lütteken, Laurenz (ed.).MGG Online (in German). Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart.(subscription required)
^Shanks, Mark (19 September 1911)."Composers – Pettersson".Classical Net.Archived from the original on 6 May 2021. Retrieved7 May 2021.
^Leden, Ido (2011). "Reumatisk sjukdom och konstnärligt skapande: Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Raoul Dufy, Allan Pettersson".Reuma Bulletinen—tidskrift för Svensk Reumatologisk Förening (in Swedish).83 (4/2011):21–23.
^Aare, Leif (1994).Pettersson: Vox humana, Rosenberg: Dagdrivaren (booklet). Stig Westerberg, Marianne Mellnäs, Margot Rödin, Sven-Erik Alexandersson, Erland Hagegård, Swedish Radio Choir, and Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. Djursholm: BIS 55. p. 6.OCLC705252024.
^Meyer, Andreas K. W. (1997).Pettersson: Symphony No. 10 & 11 (booklet). Alun Francis and Radio-Philharmonie Hannover des NDR. Georgsmarienhütte, Germany: CPO 999 285–2. p. 16.OCLC38871098.
^abcMeyer, Andreas K.W. (2019).Pettersson: Vox Humana, 6 Sånger(PDF) (booklet). Hellgren, Grevelius, Thimander, Högström, Musica Vitae, Ensemble SYD, Daniel Hansson. Georgsmarienhütte, Germany: cpo 999 286–2.Archived(PDF) from the original on 21 April 2021. Retrieved21 April 2021.
^"Mr Allan Pettersson, Obituary".The Times. No. 60684. London. 23 July 1980. p. 16.
^"Gravar.se".Gravar.se. 19 September 1911.Archived from the original on 20 April 2021. Retrieved20 April 2021.
^Meyer, Andreas K. W. (1996).Pettersson: Symphony No. 5 & 16 (booklet). Alun Francis, John-Edward Kelly, and Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Saarbrücken. Georgsmarienhütte, Germany: CPO 999 284–2. p. 19.OCLC638281199.
^Meyer, Andreas K. W. (1994).Pettersson: Symphony No. 15, Ruzicka: Das Gesegnete, das Verfluchte (booklet). Peter Ruzicka and Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. Georgsmarienhütte, Germany: CPO 999 095-2. p. 22.OCLC638280608.
^"Vill sprida information om kompositören AP".Allan Pettersson Sällskapet / The Swedish Allan Pettersson Society (in Swedish). 17 April 2018.Archived from the original on 26 November 2023. Retrieved26 November 2023.
^Steen, Renske (25 November 2018).Programmheft Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra(PDF) (booklet) (in German). Dortmund: Konzerthaus Dortmund.Archived(PDF) from the original on 26 February 2019. Retrieved25 February 2019.
Berggren, Peter; Höglind, Tommy; Källström, Gunnar (1979).Människans röst [Vox Humana—The Voice of Man] (DVD) (in Swedish and English). Stockholm: BIS 2038 (published 2013).OCLC907810041.Allan Pettersson, composer. A documentary 1973–1978.
Berggren, Peter (1987).Sången om livet [The song of life] (DVD) (in Swedish and English). Stockholm: BIS 2230 (published 2017).OCLC985346501.Sången om livet. Det förbannade! Det välsignade! Allan Pettersson in conversation 1973–1980 with Sigvard Hammar, Tommy Höglind, Gunnar Källström and Peter Berggren. Swedish Television (SVT).
Hammar, Sigvard (1974).Vem fan är Allan Pettersson? [Who the hell is Allan Pettersson?] (DVD) (in Swedish and English). Stockholm: BIS 2110 (published 2014).OCLC899741820.An interview with the composer. Swedish Television (SVT).
Aare, Leif (1995)."G Allan Pettersson".Svenskt biografiskt lexikon (in Swedish). Vol. 29. Stockholm: Riksarchivet. p. 242.Archived from the original on 8 October 2018. Retrieved21 April 2015.
Barkefors, Laila (1990). "Glauben Sie mir, die Eindrücke aus der Kindheit sind die kostbarste Gabe, die wir mit uns ins Leben bringen. Über Allan Pettersson und Södermalm". In Im Auftrag der Internationalen Allan-Pettersson-Gesellschaft von Michael Kube (ed.).Allan Pettersson Jahrbuch. 1990 (in German). Saarbrücken: Pfau Verlag. pp. 25–36.ISBN978-3-89727-196-8.
Barkefors, Laila (1994). "Allan Pettersson: der Jenny-Lind-Stipendiat in Paris 1939–40". In Im Auftrag der Internationalen Allan-Pettersson-Gesellschaft von Michael Kube (ed.).Allan Pettersson (1911–1980). Texte—Materialien—Analysen (in German). Hamburg: von Bockel Verlag. pp. 71–80.ISBN978-3-928770-30-9.
Barkefors, Laila (1995).Gallret och stjärnan. Allan Petterssons väg genom Barfotasånger till symfoni [The grating and the star. Allan Pettersson's path through "Barfotasånger" to symphony] (PhD thesis) (in Swedish).Gothenburg University.ISBN978-91-85974-34-4.
Barkefors, Laila (1999).Allan Pettersson: det brinner en sol inom oss—en tonsättares liv och verk (in Swedish). Stockholm: Sveriges Radios Förlag.ISBN978-91-522-1822-8.
Bergendal, Göran (1972).33 svenska komponister (in Swedish). Stockholm: Lindblad.ISBN978-91-32-40374-3.
Broman, Per Fredrik (2002). "New Music of Sweden". In White, John David; Christensen, Jean (eds.).New music of the Nordic countries. Hillsdale, New York: Pendragon Press musicological series. pp. 445–588.ISBN978-1-57647-019-0.
Comissiona, Sergiu; Ollefs, Christian (1986). "Die Fragen kommen wieder". In Im Auftrag der Internationalen Allan-Pettersson-Gesellschaft von Michael Kube (ed.).Allan Pettersson Jahrbuch. 1986 (in German). Saarbrücken: Pfau Verlag. pp. 37–42.ISBN978-3-89727-192-0.
Doráti, Antal (1986). "Erinnerungen an Allan Pettersson". In Im Auftrag der Internationalen Allan-Pettersson-Gesellschaft von Michael Kube (ed.).Allan Pettersson Jahrbuch. 1986 (in German). Saarbrücken: Pfau Verlag. pp. 35–36.ISBN978-3-89727-192-0.
Fischer, Jens Malte (2013). "Con accento doloroso. Eine Annäherung an Allan Pettersson und an die 6. Sinfonie". In Tadday, Ulrich (ed.).Allan Pettersson, Musik-Konzepte (edition text+kritik) (in German). München: Richard Boorberg Verlag. pp. 40–52.ISBN978-3-86916-275-1.
Gülke, Peter (1989). "Ein Stück freien Himmels". In Im Auftrag der Internationalen Allan-Pettersson-Gesellschaft von Michael Kube (ed.).Allan Pettersson Jahrbuch. 1989 (in German). Saarbrücken: Pfau Verlag. pp. 78–84.ISBN978-3-89727-195-1.
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Knust, Martin (2013). "Die Rezeption von Allan Petterssons Werk in Schweden und Deutschland: ein Vergleich". In Tadday, Ulrich (ed.).Allan Pettersson, Musik-Konzepte (edition text+kritik) (in German). München: Richard Boorberg Verlag. pp. 73–93.ISBN978-3-86916-275-1.
Krause, Andreas (1990). "Allan Petterssons Konzert für Violine und Streichquartett: Eine Studie zur Bartók Rezeption im Frühwerk". In Im Auftrag der Internationalen Allan-Pettersson-Gesellschaft von Michael Kube (ed.).Allan Pettersson Jahrbuch. 1990 (in German). Saarbrücken: Pfau Verlag. pp. 38–53.ISBN978-3-89727-196-8.
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Nicolin, Mechthild, ed. (1994).Musik von Allan Pettersson: Konzerte 1994/95 und ein Symposion (in German). Wuppertal: Sekretariat für gemeinsame Kulturarbeit in Nordrhein-Westfalen.OCLC724739529.
Ollefs, Christian (1989). "Epilog (Subjektive Begegnung mit einem Phänomen)". In Im Auftrag der Internationalen Allan-Pettersson-Gesellschaft von Michael Kube (ed.).Allan Pettersson Jahrbuch. 1989 (in German). Saarbrücken: Pfau Verlag. pp. 49–51.ISBN978-3-89727-195-1.
Rapoport, Paul (1978). "Chapter V: Allan Pettersson and his Symphony No. 2".Opus est. Six composers from Northern Europe (1st ed.). London: Kahn & Averill. pp. 109–132.ISBN978-0-900707-48-3. (1985). (2nd ed.). New York: Taplinger.ISBN978-0-8008-5845-2.
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Stoïanova, Ivanka (1986). "Die Raum-Symphonik von Allan Pettersson". In Im Auftrag der Internationalen Allan-Pettersson-Gesellschaft von Michael Kube (ed.).Allan Pettersson Jahrbuch. 1986 (in German). Saarbrücken: Pfau Verlag. pp. 17–35.ISBN978-3-89727-192-0.
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