Allan PETTERSSON (1911-1980)
Symphony no.6 (1963-66) [59:50]
Norrköping Symphony Orchestra/Christian Lindberg
rec. Louis de Geer Concert Hall, Norrköping, Sweden, January 2012.
BIS-SACD-1980 
[59:50]
True connoisseurs know that one of the finest ways
to spend thirty or sixty minutes is listening to an excellent recording
of a magnificent symphony. They will also know that some of the twentieth
century's greatest symphonists have been Scandinavian - Holmboe, Langgaard,
Aho, Sæverud, Rosenberg, Nørgård, Englund, Rautavaara,
Sallinen, Segerstam, to name at random some very different composers
often overshadowed by Sibelius. Prominent in that list must stand the
name of Swede Allan Pettersson - any arguments to the contrary are truly
obliterated by this recording, the latest volume in BIS's long-winded
but compelling series dedicated to this relatively unsung master of
the genre.
CPO have already been here and long since left sporting their "First
Pettersson Complete Symphonies" t-shirts (see
review),
yet BIS held their own ace with the previous volume's premiere recording
of the composer's unfinished First Symphony, the extensive extant bits
and pieces assembled into a more-than-adequate performing edition by
Christian Lindberg (see
review).
Some of the earlier volumes from both BIS and CPO are compromised to
a degree by less than ideal audio engineering, but sound quality on
BIS's latest two has been of the finest - the crystal clarity of this
latest 'Super Audio' recording is almost matched by the standard stereo
of the last.
At any rate, by the time Pettersson reached his Sixth Symphony his imagination
had attained a level of ideational and architectural supremacy that
many can only dream of. Written typically as a single movement, spanning
more than two thousand bars of incredible colour and detail, the Sixth
is shorter only than the 70-odd-minute Thirteenth and the 75-minute
Ninth in terms of gigantism, but Pettersson never forgets his audience:
propelled constantly onwards by the sheer force of musical argument
and expression - always fundamentally tonal too - the listener's mind
is unable to wander. Moreover, though Pettersson's severe arthritis
sentenced him to a painful, almost wretched life, his music does not
resort to morbidity or miserabilism. On the other hand, the tone is
almost always expansively serious-minded, graphically introspective,
post-apocalyptically serene: the symphonies are eerily lifelike in their
restriction of genuinely joyous moments. The final ten minutes of the
Sixth are devastatingly soulful. This is one of the twentieth century's
greatest symphonic works.
The accompanying quadrilingual booklet has a shortish but illuminating
essay by Michael Kube. With a terrific performance under Lindberg by
the astonishingly talented Norrköping Symphony Orchestra - their
second of the year too! (see
review)
- this is one of the recordings of the year.
Byzantion
Contact at artmusicreviews.co.uk
See also review of the CD by
Rob Barnett and the 24/96 download by
Dan
Morgan
