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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.[1][2][3][4]: 3 [5] His music can hardly be confused with other 20th-century works. In the final decade of his life, his symphonies (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 conductors Antal Doráti and Sergiu Comissiona premiered and recorded several of his symphonies. Pettersson's song cycle Barefoot Songs influenced many of his compositions. Doráti arranged eight of the Barefoot Songs. Birgit Cullberg produced three ballets based on Pettersson's music.

Pettersson in 1957, Swedish Press Archive, Foto: Bertil S-son Åberg

Pettersson studied at the Royal Swedish Academy of Music's conservatory. For more than a decade, he was a violist in the Stockholm Concert Society; after retiring he devoted himself exclusively to composition. Later in his life, he experienced rheumatoid arthritis. Pettersson was awarded the Swedish royal medal Litteris et Artibus.

Biography

Early life

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 at Granhammar manor in Västra Ryd parish in the Uppland province of Sweden. He grew up poor[13] in Stockholm's Södermalm 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, Pettersson 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 the Royal Swedish Academy of Music's conservatory.[20]

In 1930, he began studying violin and later the viola, as well as counterpoint and harmony, 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 violist Maurice Vieux. Pettersson won the Jenny Lind scholarship prize in 1938, using it to study abroad.[21][22]

Later life

During the 1940s he worked as a violist in the Stockholm Concert Society (later the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra).[8] He also studied composition with the composer and conductor Karl-Birger Blomdahl, orchestration with the conductor Tor Mann, and counterpoint with organist and composer Otto Olsson.[10][23] In 1943, he married a physiotherapist, Gudrun Tyra Charlotta Gustafsson (1921–2017).[10][24]

In September 1951, he went to Paris to study composition and was a student of composers René Leibowitz, Arthur Honegger, Olivier Messiaen, and Darius Milhaud.[10][25][16] Pettersson returned to Sweden at the end of 1952. In the early 1950s, he was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis.[26][27][a] He gave up playing the viola and began devoting his life to composition.[13] In 1954, Pettersson 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 his Symphony No. 7 [sv; nl] (1966),[12] which premiered on 13 October 1968 in Stockholm Concert Hall with Antal 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 Swedish Grammis in 1970.[4]: 7  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.[33][34]

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.[35][36] Pettersson was admitted to Karolinska 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 the Litteris 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 the Högalid Church columbarium.[45][46][8]

Music

Pettersson's music can be compared to Mahler's symphonic output, especially in the magnificent design and the passion and dynamism.[47] The symphonic eccentric Pettersson is not an avant-gardist.[3] His kinetic[48] and organic development of musical matter[49] uses traditional means of expression.[50] Basic motifs are constantly being changed and developed.[3] Pettersson's writing is very strenuous and often has many simultaneous polyphonic lines.[51][52] His symphonies end 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 24 Barefoot 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]

Works

Pettersson began composing songs and smaller chamber works in the 1930s.[63]

His production from the 1940s includes the song cycle twenty-four Barefoot Songs (1943–1945) based on his poems and a dissonant[64] concerto for violin and string quartet (1949), which is influenced by Béla Bartók and Paul Hindemith.[65][66] Pettersson soon found his own compositional style.[3]In 1951, he created the experimental Seven Sonatas for two Violins. At the same time, he composed the first of his seventeen symphonies, which he left unfinished. This work has been recorded in a performing version prepared by trombonist and conductor Christian 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-defining Symphony No. 6 (1963–1966).[70] 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 Literature Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda with contemporary relevance[e] 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, rev. 1980) written for the violinist Ida Haendel,[72] a Symphony No. 16 (1979) which features a bravura solo part for alto saxophone commissioned by American saxophonist Frederick L. Hemke,[73] and an incomplete, posthumously discovered concerto for viola and orchestra (1979–1980).[74]

Legacy

In 1968–1969, conductor and composer Antal Doráti arranged eight of Pettersson's Barefoot Songs as full-scale orchestral songs.[75]

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).[76]

The four orchestral sketches "... das Gesegnete, das Verfluchte" (1991) by Peter Ruzicka are a tribute to Pettersson's life and work, quoting sketches of his unfinished Symphony No. 17.[77]

Roy Andersson used the finale of Symphony No. 7 in his short film World of Glory (Härlig är jorden).[78]

After Pettersson's death, the Internationale 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]

In 2002, a Swedish Allan Pettersson Society (Allan Pettersson-sällskapet [sv]) has been founded.[81]

Awards

  • 1970 Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music [sv] (Kungliga Musikaliska Akademien), No. 741[10]
  • 1977 Litteris et Artibus[10]
  • 1979 Professors namn [sv] (Honorary Professorship Royal Swedish Academy of Music)[10]

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) based on recordings of 1984, 1988, 1991–1995, 2004. In 2023, a cycle of all Pettersson symphonies produced by BIS Records was completed.[82][83]

Symphonies

Other works

Writings

  • Pettersson, Allan (1952). "Dissonance—douleur". Musique Contemporaine—Revue Internationale (in French). 4–6. Paris: 235–236. OCLC 702671430.
  • —— (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. ISBN 978-3-89727-194-4.
  • —— (1955). "Den konstnärliga lögnen". Musiklivet (in Swedish). 28 (2). Stockholm: Sveriges körförbund: 26–27. ISSN 0027-4836.
  • —— (1968). "Identification med det oanseliga [Letter to Leif Aare]". Nutida Musik (in Swedish). 12 (2). Stockholm: International Society for Contemporary Music, Svenska sektionen: 55–56. ISSN 1652-6082.
  • ——; 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. ISBN 978-3-89727-195-1.
  • —— (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. ISBN 978-3-89727-195-1.

Notes

References

Citations

Documentary film

  • 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). OCLC 907810041. 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). OCLC 985346501. 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). OCLC 899741820. An interview with the composer. Swedish Television (SVT).

Bibliography

  • Aare, Leif (1978). Allan Pettersson (in Swedish). Stockholm: Norstedt & Söners förlag. ISBN 978-91-1-783412-8.
  • 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. Retrieved 21 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. ISBN 978-3-89727-196-8.
  • 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. ISBN 978-3-928770-30-9.
  • 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. ISBN 978-91-85974-34-4.
  • Barkefors, Laila (1999). Allan Pettersson: det brinner en sol inom oss—en tonsättares liv och verk (in Swedish). Stockholm: Sveriges Radios Förlag. ISBN 978-91-522-1822-8.
  • Bergendal, Göran (1972). 33 svenska komponister (in Swedish). Stockholm: Lindblad. ISBN 978-91-32-40374-3.
  • 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. ISBN 978-1-57647-019-0.
  • Caron, Jean-Luc (2006). Allan Pettersson: Destin, douleur et musique (in French). Lausanne: l'Age d'homme. ISBN 978-2-8251-3639-3. Archived from the original on 29 July 2023. Retrieved 15 November 2021.
  • 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. ISBN 978-3-89727-192-0.
  • Davis, Colin (August 2007). Toward a Unified Whole: Allan Pettersson's Symphony No. 5 (PhD thesis). Denton, Texas: University of North Texas. ISBN 978-0-549-31891-0. Archived from the original on 20 April 2021. Retrieved 20 April 2021.
  • 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. ISBN 978-3-89727-192-0.
  • 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. ISBN 978-3-86916-275-1.
  • 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. ISBN 978-3-89727-195-1.
  • Hanne, Krister (1995). "Allan Pettersson: Später Ruhm für einen Querkopf". Nordeuropa-Forum: Zeitschrift für Politik, Wirtschaft und Kultur. Vol. 5. Berlin: Berlin Verlag. pp. 41–43. Archived from the original on 20 April 2021. Retrieved 20 April 2021.
  • Im Auftrag der Internationalen Allan-Pettersson-Gesellschaft von Michael Kube, ed. (1986b) [1986–2004]. Allan Pettersson Jahrbuch (in German). Saarbrücken: Pfau Verlag. OCLC 186170367.
  • Keuk, Alexander (2013). "Festhalten und Loslassen. Zur Konstituierung einer kompositorischen Handschrift in der Musik von Allan Pettersson". In Tadday, Ulrich (ed.). Allan Pettersson, Musik-Konzepte (edition text+kritik) (in German). München: Richard Boorberg Verlag. pp. 23–39. ISBN 978-3-86916-275-1.
  • 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. ISBN 978-3-86916-275-1.
  • 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. ISBN 978-3-89727-196-8.
  • Kube, Michael, ed. (1994). Allan Pettersson (1911–1980): Texte—Materialien—Analysen (in German). Hamburg: Von Bockel Verlag. ISBN 978-3-928770-30-9.
  • Kube, Michael [in German] (1996). Allan Pettersson Symphonie Nr. 8 (in German). Wilhelmshaven: Florian Noetzel. ISBN 978-3-7959-0708-2.
  • Kube, Michael (2013). "Då behöver man distansen [Da braucht man Distanz]. Biografie und Werk zwischen Selbstinszenierung und Reflexion". In Tadday, Ulrich (ed.). Allan Pettersson, Musik-Konzepte (edition text+kritik) (in German). München: Richard Boorberg Verlag. pp. 5–22. ISBN 978-3-86916-275-1.
  • Kube, Michael (2014). Allan Pettersson (PDF) (in Swedish). Stockholm: Atlantis. ISBN 978-91-7353-541-0. OCLC 928458196. Archived (PDF) from the original on 26 May 2023. Retrieved 26 May 2023.
  • Meyer, Andreas K. W. (1990). "Allan Pettersson Werkverzeichnis (revidierter systematischer und chronologischer Katalog)". In Im Auftrag der Internationalen Allan-Pettersson-Gesellschaft von Michael Kube (ed.). Allan Pettersson Jahrbuch. 1990 (in German). Saarbrücken: Pfau Verlag. pp. 66–73. ISBN 978-3-89727-196-8.
  • Nicolin, Mechthild, ed. (1994). Musik von Allan Pettersson: Konzerte 1994/95 und ein Symposion (in German). Wuppertal: Sekretariat für gemeinsame Kulturarbeit in Nordrhein-Westfalen. OCLC 724739529.
  • 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. ISBN 978-3-89727-195-1.
  • 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. ISBN 978-0-900707-48-3. (1985). (2nd ed.). New York: Taplinger. ISBN 978-0-8008-5845-2.
  • Rapoport, Paul (1981). Allan Pettersson. Stockholm: Swedish Music Information Center. ISBN 978-91-85470-36-5.
  • 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. ISBN 978-3-89727-192-0.
  • Tadday, Ulrich, ed. (2013). Allan Pettersson, Musik-Konzepte (edition text+kritik) (in German). München: Richard Boorberg Verlag. ISBN 978-3-86916-275-1.

External links

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