Pettersson's Pavilion

[AnotherSpin]

I don't want the moderator's general reproach to apply to me. After Maestro267's message (#1337), I posted mine (#1338). My message was respectful and contained nothing impolite or antagonistic. It offered an alternative perspective on Allan Pettersson's work, emphasizing that his music was created in spite of his illness, not because of it. It didn't criticize but rather expanded on the first post. Someone's nerves gave out — it happens. I hope Maestro267 cools down and returns.

[Brian]

I think the main antagonistic attitudes were expressed a page or two earlier in the thread, and those earlier, worse conversations got Maestro feeling like this thread was a violent arena.

M quit before we could reply, and we did not see the previous conversation. I guess we need to recruit a Pettersson loving moderator? 

[ChamberNut]

I always did want to eventually explore Pettersson's symphonies but was a bit gun shy.

It will be added to my streaming queue. 

[ritter]

.... I guess we need to recruit a Pettersson loving moderator? 

I'm sure we can find one among the handful of Pettersson admirers there is worldwide...

[AnotherSpin]

I think the main antagonistic attitudes were expressed a page or two earlier in the thread, and those earlier, worse conversations got Maestro feeling like this thread was a violent arena.

M quit before we could reply, and we did not see the previous conversation. I guess we need to recruit a Pettersson loving moderator? 

Yet, M launched a full-on attack directed at me. Too bad I didn't get a chance to tell him I couldn't care less. Stuff like this amuses me far more than it annoys me. Especially since I've already endured numerous insults from the great and mighty Todd, no less. After that, everything else just sounds like birds chirping   .

[foxandpeng]

I'm sure we can find one among the handful of Pettersson admirers there is worldwide...

Oil! You Philistine!!

Hehe

[DavidW]

I always did want to eventually explore Pettersson's symphonies but was a bit gun shy.

I think it is the one track that is an hour-long that is intimidating that occurs on so many of his works...

[Karl Henning]

I think it is the one track that is an hour-long that is intimidating that occurs on so many of his works...

Something near that: the combination of the soundworld (and I do mean it musically, not "emotionally") not being my own favorite, and the need (in order to be fair to the artist) to dedicate a large span of aural attention means that in effect, I visit his work seldom. Back in the days before I saw the musical merit in the work, this combination made an unfair dismissal quite easy. 

[Brian]

The enormous forms are certainly what intimidate me. Commentators here and elsewhere (inc. Hurwitz) have cured me of the fear that it is all unrelenting doom and gloom and depression, but there isn't really a smaller "starter symphony" to dip your toes. He's like Mahler in that way, except never performed live.  So far the only work I know is the youthful songs on BIS.

[Karl Henning]

The composer in me has always stepped around the "unrelenting doom and gloom and depression," as (from my viewpoint) musically immaterial. And, as a corollary, I've smiled inside when this is lauded as a chief virtue of the music. 

[Spotted Horses]

The composer in me has always stepped around the "unrelenting doom and gloom and depression," as (from my viewpoint) musically immaterial. And, as a corollary, I've smiled inside when this is lauded as a chief virtue of the music.

Eventually I realized that Pettersson, who grew up is an impoverished household, conceived his music as representing the struggle of the weak in a hostile world. I hear struggle in it, not doom or depression.

That said, I find it a challenge to take in.

[Karl Henning]

Eventually I realized that Pettersson, who grew up is an impoverished household, conceived his music as representing the struggle of the weak in a hostile world. I hear struggle in it, not doom or depression.

That said, I find it a challenge to take in.

Good insight. 

[Spotted Horses]

Good insight.

Comes from reading CD booklets.

[Karl Henning]

Comes from reading CD booklets.

I've been learning things from  CD booklets myself, this week!

[Karl Henning]

It's something I'd like to see live. I am bothered by the fact that BIS recorded the orchestra alone, and then recorded and overdubbed the choir weeks later.

Very peculiar. I shouldn't have thought BIS amenable to such a jiggery-pokery approach.

[Spotted Horses]

It's something I'd like to see live. I am bothered by the fact that BIS recorded the orchestra alone, and then recorded and overdubbed the choir weeks later.

Maybe they can sell the version without the choir.

[Karl Henning]

I think that the big challenging Pettersson symphonies like the Thirteenth and the Ninth might prove more accessible if they were performed live more often: you can watch a whole orchestra of musicians struggle to keep up, and be totally exhausted at the end of the work. The visual spectacle makes the work more engaging, kind of like Berio's Sequenza VI that wears violists out so.

I have a pocketful of pieces I never "got" until hearing them live, so this makes eminent sense.

[Duke Bluebeard]

What I like about Symphonies Nos. 6, 7 & 8 is the let-up of the endless onslaught of chromaticism and churning rhythms. These lyrical episodes, for me, reveal the true man behind the music. I couldn't careless what he went through as a composer, because the music itself is abstract (hell, I don't even buy into the whole notion of programs in some works that are supposed to be descriptive of a certain time, place or event). I don't want to undermine or act like I don't care what happened to him on a human level, because it is tragic his circumstances and all, but no one is going to dictate to me how something is supposed to sound when I have my own thoughts about it. I think he's mostly a one-trick pony as a composer.

The majority of his symphonies just aren't that interesting to me on a musical level. In fact, I find the single-mindedness of some of Vermeulen's symphonies more musically satisfying than Pettersson.

And if you guys think I'm being too tough on Pettersson, then that's fine, we can agree to disagree, which we undoubtedly will.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Here's something I've wondered about, but never found an answer to. How did he get all those notes down on paper? From what I've read, due to his severe arthritis, the last symphony he was able to compose physically was #5 (or maybe it was #6). So who put those millions of notes down on paper? And did he dictate them to someone?

[CRCulver]

Here's something I've wondered about, but never found an answer to. How did he get all those notes down on paper? From what I've read, due to his severe arthritis, the last symphony he was able to compose physically was #5 (or maybe it was #6). So who put those millions of notes down on paper? And did he dictate them to someone?

That's a good question. I suspect the Allan Pettersson group on Facebook could answer that. I just did a quick search through the web and the Leif Aare biography but didn't find anything. I vaguely recall now that there is a scene in one of those BIS documentary DVDs where Pettersson was working with an assistant? Anyway, that assistant(s) is quite unsung compared to say, Ligeti's assistant Louise Duchesneau who figures heavily in scholarship regarding that composer, or James Ingram the copyist for Stockhausen.