In the second part of this year’s Lent Series, focusing on the recently released BIS Complete Edition of Allan Petterson’s music, i’m continuing to explore the earliest compositions, which include his first large-scale work.
Andante espressivo (1938), Romanza (1942)
These two miniatures, both for violin and piano, testify to the development of Pettersson’s language since his very first work (also for these instruments), the Two Elegies of 1934. In the case of Andante espressivo, it’s impressive how its relatively simple, scalic material is made into something that sounds so personal and powerful. BIS has recorded the piece twice, the first of which, featuring Martin Gelland and Lennart Wallin isn’t so engaging, making it sound simpler than it is. The label’s second recording, in the Complete Edition, is by Ulf Wallin and Thomas Hoppe and is far more effective: subdued and internalised, in the process growing more intense, the violin and piano working as twin complementary strands, and Wallin’s soaring conclusion is a real wow moment. Better still, though, is the recording by Yamei Yu and Chia Chou; even less simple and more intense, the level of passion the duo displays is remarkable, as is the lovely way they pull the music back partway through, as if tilting everything in a related but different direction. Here, those twin strands feel beautifully and inextricably entwined.
As for Romanza, there’s really not much worth saying, as it’s so traditional it feels more like an exercise than a sufficiently original Pettersson composition. Structured in two short halves, the second is entirely conventional, though the first is interesting for its strangely angular melodic line. Of the four available recordings, the ones by Isabelle van Keulen with Enrico Pace and Martin Gelland with Lennart Wallin are good enough; Yamei Yu and Chia Chou shape it better, making the second half a nice gear change. Best is the one in the Complete Edition, again featuring Ulf Wallin and Thomas Hoppe; they try to take a more subtle approach, managing to minimise some of the angularity, and there’s a thoughtfulness that suggests they’re figuring it out together. As a consequence the second half becomes a more effective counterpart to the first, eventually coming full circle at the end.
24 Barfotasånger (1943-1945)
The composer’s first substantial work, the 24 Barfotasånger [Barefoot Songs] were composed over a two-year period, setting Pettersson’s own texts. A song cycle lasting around 50 minutes, it occupies similar territory to the 6 Songs, now greatly expanded upon in a more direct and personal manner. As such, the Barfotasånger are an excellation summation of the composer’s outlook, language and ambitions at this time. They’re infused with a folk-like quality, both musically and textually, often with multiple repeated verses and refrains. That in itself can present an interpretative problem, as it clearly does for Monica Groop and Cord Garben who, as with their lacklustre rendition of the 6 Songs, make too many of the Barfotasånger seem oversimplistic, expressionless or downright tedious, and the unsettling nature of the texts (which often evoke the same, at times disturbing, mingling of child and adult themes as Des Knaben Wunderhorn) is never really made convincing. Even worse is Torsten Mossberg and Anders Karlqvist, proving what they did to the 6 Songs was no fluke, ruining each and every one of them so that the cycle becomes a blank slog lacking almost any characterisation or expression. Mossberg’s voice is at least accurate but Karlqvist sounds at best functional, and the whole thing is woefully amateur.
The earliest recording, from 1974, tries an interesting experiment, combining male and female voices. Mezzo Margot Rödin and baritone Erik Sædén take turns, accompanied by Arnold Östman, in a performance that goes much further into the dark heart of these troubling songs. Overall, Sædén is weaker, his voice lacking gravitas and tending not to shape the songs enough to reduce their repetitiveness (it’s a shame it falls to him to conclude the cycle, leaving it on a decided anticlimax). Rödin, on the other hand, as she was in the 6 Songs, is marvellous, fully entering into the work’s emotional landscape. She opts for inscrutability in fifth song ‘Stjärnan och gallret’ [The Star and the Window Bars], a choice that works surprisingly well, as if its positive and negative elements had cancelled each other out. In ‘Hundarna vid havet’ [The Dogs by the Sea], though, her tone of subdued solemnity demonstrates just how immersively real she can make Pettersson’s bleak sadness.
Again, though, it falls to the recording in the Complete Edition, by Peter Mattei and Bengt-Åke Lundin, to give a masterclass in what these songs can really be. Throughout, Mattei creates interesting, appropriate dramatic contours that prevent the Barfotasånger from ever sounding repetitious or overlong. He embraces an enormous expressive range, from delicate intimacy to a level of declamation that really brings alive the implied desperation running through Pettersson’s texts. ‘Liten ska vänta’ [Small One Shall Wait] is particularly strong, the nursery rhyme-like beauty clashing against its doom-laden cruelty. By contrast, ‘En spelkarls himlafärd’ [Death of a Fiddler] becomes something akin to a recitative, elastically responding to the narrative, while Mattei is alone among interpreters in bringing sarcasm (rather than just tongue-in-cheek) to several of the songs, especially ‘Du lögnar’ [Telling Lies]. Their conclusion of the cycle, ‘Han ska släcka min lykta’ [He Will Extinguish My Lamp], is gorgeous and tragic, Lundin projecting a static backdrop against which Mattei cuts a forlorn, broken figure. Mattei and Lundin have set the bar so infeasibly high in this recording that it’s going to be a tall order for anyone to make the 24 Barfotasånger sound as immediate and heart-rending as this.
There are various recordings that feature selections from and / or arrangements of the Barfotasånger, among them a notable one by Antal Doráti, happily also included in the Complete Edition. Doráti’s suite comprises eight of the songs, which he has fleshed out for orchestra (having tried, and failed, to convinced Pettersson to do it himself). There are times when the orchestrations can seem rather bright and overpositive; ‘Herren går på ängen’ [The Lord Walks in the Meadow] is made a bit too much into a balmy pastorale, and ‘Blomma säj’ [Flower, Tell Me] has more than a dash of cheese in its reworking of what should be exquisite fragility. Yet most of the time Doráti nails it; ‘Klokar och knythänder’ [Wise Men and Clenched Hands] has a mix of light and dark perfect for this melancholic song; extra ebullience in ‘Du lögnar’ [Telling Lies] underpins the sarcasm, and perhaps best of all is ‘Mens flugorna surra’ [While the Flies are Buzzing], lyrical yet edgy with an air of grotesque, and a devilish moment where a whip simulates the swatting of a fly. Performed by Anders Larsson with the Nordic Chamber Orchestra conducted by Christian Lindberg (one of the stalwarts of the Complete Edition) it’s a worthy colourised companion to Pettersson’s stark black and white originals.
Lamento for Piano (1945)
Pettersson’s entire output for solo piano consists of this lone, 2½-minute piece. Its music is driven by a right hand melody, ornamented with brief mordents, and occasional harmonic and contrapuntal moments en route. In some ways the material, rather than being overtly melancholic, has a neutrality that invites pianists to colour it in their own way. The BIS label has recorded it twice, the first of which, by Lennart Wallin, opts for a dramatic reading, Wallin beginning almost introverted before suddenly ramping up the dynamics, which, combined with quick flowing momentum, enlivens the centre of the piece. It’s debatable whether this aids the expression of the music, and the same goes for Thomas Hoppe, whose recording is featured in the Complete Edition. His is another quasi-Romantic take on the music, though the significant dynamic shifts seem to detract from Lamento‘s fundamental simplicity.
Better than both of these is the 1995 recording by Volker Banfield, which could almost be called cold and calculating, moving fluidly but not quite flowing, as if the weight of the material requires holding back, never able to relax into it. Banfield’s performance has something of the coolness of Baroque keyboard music, which fits Lamento just perfectly (and hints at where Pettersson would go next), conveying melancholy in the most subtle, understated of ways.
Fuga in E (1948)
The last work in Pettersson’s early period is the 13-minute Fuga in E for oboe, clarinet and bassoon, composed when he was studying composition with Karl-Birger Blomdahl (the first teacher whom Pettersson found genuinely helpful). The extent to which Lamento suggests Baroque intricacy, combined with the extended contrapuntal exercise of Fuga, suggests Pettersson may have been explicitly studying Baroque compositional models and methods at this time. It’s a curious work, easily the most challenging of all Pettersson’s earliest pieces. The challenge arises from its lengthy duration and harmonic language, the latter of which, though not very dissonant, exhibits a level of ambiguity that at times brings to mind the grey harmonic patina of Schoenberg’s serial works. As with Schoenberg, this greyness is exacerbated by the music’s much more conventional rhythmic and contrapuntal elements, to produce music that can feel circular and directionless. Yet Fuga is not a serial work, and despite an occasional sense of remoteness, the piece is lively with playful counterpoint that consistently produces engaging inner relationships between the players.
The challenge for performers is to maximise the contrapuntal whimsy in order for Fuga not to sounds like just a bit of academic study. Of the two available recordings, the one included in the Complete Edition is less successful in this regard. It’s a bright, vivid performance by Thomas Bodin, Álvaro Pastor Jiménez and Linus Björnstam (all members of the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, the orchestra featured throughout the Complete Edition), but i can’t help hearing it as rather flat, accurate rather than interestingly shaped. That doesn’t mean it’s not a pleasure to listen to, but it does end up sounding, if not exactly clinical, then a touch dry. The other recording, on the CPO label, featuring members of the Albert Schweitzer Quintet, is more successful. There’s a convincing dramatic sensibility that lifts it out of its potentially grey, contrapuntal trappings, with a corresponding flexing of tension that heightens the sense of play. Fugues, it seems, can actually be fun.
