Composer: Allan Pettersson
Orchestra: Norrköping Symphony Orchestra
Conductor: Christian Lindberg
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: BIS
Catalogue: BIS2190
Release: 2015
Size: 361 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
Symphony No. 13
01. Beginning
02. 5 Bars after Fig. 15
03. 3 Bars after Fig. 35
04. 5 Bars after Fig. 70 (Tempo I)
05. 3 Bars before Fig. 87
06. 4 Bars before Fig. 99
07. 5 Bars after Fig. 128
08. 4 Bars after Fig. 152
09. 3 Bars after Fig. 165 (Tempo I)
10. 4 Bars after Fig. 169
11. 5 Bars after Fig. 174
12. 4 Bars after Fig. 194
Beginning his first symphony in 1951 and working on his 17th when he died in 1980, Allan Pettersson concerned himself almost exclusively with the symphonic genre for three decades – and this at a time when many composers considered the symphony to be hopelessly old-fashioned. Pettersson, however, was deeply committed to the genre, a commitment that led to ‘the last symphonist’ moniker that he was attributed in Sweden. He completed his Symphony No. 13 in August 1976, as a commission by the Bergen Festival for its 25th anniversary the following year. The complexity and large scale of the work was such that the first performance was postponed for another year however – and in fact the work had never been performed in Sweden until Christian Lindberg and the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra played it in concert in 2014. Like the majority of Pettersson’s symphonies it is in one movement, harbouring the great contrasts between an atonal and a traditional, tonal idiom that characterise the composer’s musical language. A noteworthy feature in the present work is the presence of many brief allusions to other composers – from Beethoven (with the theme to the Fifth Symphony) to D-S-C-H, the musical cryptogram of Shostakovich’s name. Over the course of four previous discs, Christian Lindberg and the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra have demonstrated a true affinity with Pettersson’s music, an affinity that deepens with each new recording.
As Christian Lindberg and the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra progress through the 16 symphonies of Allan Pettersson, they confront some of his densest and darkest music, particularly in his works of the 1970s. The Symphony No. 13 (1976) is a single movement that is unrelenting in its contrapuntal activity, tragic in its expressions of restlessness and violence, and almost brutal in its physical demands on the musicians. Indeed, the work runs without break for over an hour, and the writing is a continuous unfolding of ideas that are in conflict with few moments of resolution, only to be replaced by more episodes of severe but ever-changing counterpoint. Yet this knotty work holds a kind of fascination, because the slow but steady generation of ideas has an overall consistency that makes sense, especially after repeated hearings, and once the listener has absorbed Pettersson’s abrasive harmonies and angular melodic lines, the piece makes sense, though perhaps more through its own momentum than through any identifiable themes or progressions. Lindberg and his orchestra give the symphony a committed reading that demonstrates their virtuosity and resilience, and BIS’ super audio recording makes all the musical strands perfectly clear and provides a spacious acoustic to accommodate Pettersson’s massive sonorities.