Symphony No. 13 (1976)
In the first part of this Lent Series, i remarked on the sorry fact that most of the admittedly sparse commentary on Pettersson’s music has invariably adopted the stance that it is all bleak, tragic and full of despair. Several of the preceding works i’ve explored have conclusively proved otherwise – particularly the early contrapuntal works and Symphonies Nos. 9 to 11 – but perhaps the greatest refutation of that hyperbolic fallacy is Pettersson’s epic Symphony No. 13.
As will have become apparent in this series, there’s a great deal of stylistic and behavioural continuity across the symphonies, and No. 13 can be thought of as a large-scale synthesis of three previously-explored ideas. The first is a symphonic structure that finds clarity in a late, extensive lyrical section (as in Symphonies Nos. 6 and 7); the second is a musical language characterised by extreme convolution, involving both a highly volatile environment (especially prominent in Symphony No. 4) and the persistent presence of evolving rhythmic motifs (Symphony No. 10). The third is arguably the most significant in terms of what Symphony No. 13 is like as experienced: it fully embraces the same full-throttle energy of Symphony No. 9, not according to an unstoppable rapid pulse this time but following the whims of the other two ideas. Also like No. 9 it is huge in scope, cast in a single movement with a duration of around 66 minutes.
The opening few bars of Symphony No. 13 are important, as they hint at both the work’s ultimate trajectory as well as, depending on your perspective, what’s most important. The work begins with the most fleeting of lyrical possibilities, immediately and dramatically swept aside as the music seemingly breaks and collapses, only to get itself going again, beginning to flow, accrete and expand. On a first listening it’s not immediately obvious that this was a moment of significance, but as the symphony progresses there are further indications of this lyricality; it’s not enough to be thought of as an undercurrent but, rather, an inclination, one that will find different forms of fruition. Before two minutes have passed we’re back in a darker, quieter episode, but it too is forced to yield to pounding, tumbling ideas, strident brass, all part of the work’s wild tussling between tangible melodic moments and gnarly, unstable energy. In the minutes that follow, another feature of the work is established, one that perhaps could be thought of as adjacent to Pettersson’s fondness for an undulating landscape of large swells (integral to the volatility of Symphonies Nos. 4 and 6): the music undergoes processes of growth and collapse, regrowth and recollapse, at times leading to forms of circularity all too familiar from Pettersson’s previous output. Once again, in such music as this no ideas are able to dominate, apart from the glimpses of melodic music that stand out simply due to their relative stability.
Various brief suspensions pop up along the way, miniature breathers indicating a shift in behaviour, and one of these (around 12½ minutes in) leads to the first really stable episode of the work, where melody and light counterpoint are allowed time to be heard. It’s an oasis, its spell broken by the combined force of momentum and rude descending brass phrases that shake and break everything apart again, leading to a highly charged climax. However, as the pieces are reassembled anew, the work begins to take on an increasingly playful character, with the beginnings of its motivic evolution (a short-short-long-long rhythm) and different kinds of repetitions occurring all over the place. We pass through another Pettersson processional, out the other side into a texture continually thickening and thinning while the pulse is abruptly twisted in a gear change (shortly before the halfway point) so sudden it’s surprising the symphony’s engine doesn’t completely stall.
There’s grandeur amid the mayhem, shape and contour to the turbulence, but the speed and intensity of its near-permanent state of flux is such that (as with No. 9) it’s difficult to keep a grip on things. This is where the motifs, regularly changing shape and emphasis, become important, in addition to the familiar behaviour of growth and collapse, as well as the other forms of lyricism that unexpectedly arise. At the 40-minute mark something like a chorale can be made out within the ongoing hyperactive tutti, which a couple of minutes later is reborn as a waltz of sorts. Pettersson’s capricious approach to melody means that the ear starts leaning into any sustained pitches in the texture due to the possibility that they constitute something possibly more longer-term than the bewildering cavalcade of ideas streaming past. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t, and in fact repeated listenings don’t necessarily clarify which is which.
As with No. 9, one of the things that makes Symphony No. 13 one of the most wondrous symphonies ever composed is the fact that, despite being made to feel very small, overwhelmed by the literal and figurative scale of invention, we don’t so much feel disoriented as caught up in it all, carried aloft by its buoyancy, surrounded and filled with a truly rare and extraordinary, kaleidoscopic torrent that never quite tilts into overload. In the closing 15 minutes Pettersson makes the turbulence subside enough for its lyrical roots to flower, echoing Concerto No. 2 for String Orchestra by again referencing Barber’s Adagio for Strings (as well as possibly a fleeting quotation from Rachmaninov’s Second Symphony), ascending into the sonic stratosphere before arriving at a climactic, dirty chorale. It’s not a straightforward melodic conclusion, but by now the lyrical impetus is such that the orchestra unites in one last push to a brilliant, brash final chord.
i said above that the work’s ultimate trajectory depends on your perspective. As i’ve outlined it here, it’s lyricality that defines and completes that trajectory. However, in one of the two recordings of the work, it’s possible to read things differently. Alun Francis and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra present the work as an altogether less certain proposition. This uncertainty extends not only to the fabric of the music but also to the makeup of the orchestra. Different sections often sound separate from one another, exacerbating the perceptions of volatility and collapse such that there’s a tangible impression of disunity. i don’t mean that in a negative way, it’s simply an alternate reading, one that makes the drama more dangerous, as on several occasions there’s the distinct impression that the music could rip itself apart. In this performance, the lyrical threads are just that, threads, that don’t necessarily carry much greater significance than anything else, and could indeed have occurred just as spontaneously as everything else. A drawback with all this is that it renders the symphony’s churning invention much more confusing, and the path to its massive last chord feels almost accidental. Nonetheless, it’s still a superb performance that needs to be heard.
More cohesive and more compelling is the one included in the Complete Edition by the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra conducted by Christian Lindberg. This reading emphatically places those lyrical threads as seeds that will grow, develop and mutate throughout the course of the work. It’s one of many ways that Lindberg makes the symphony more coherent overall. The different sections of the orchestra here are all in agreement – or, at least, in a capricious kind of sympathy – engaging in the same kind of gleeful complexity as in Symphony No. 9. The increased clarity of this recording highlights a multitude of connections: lines and gestures echoed around the orchestra; differing kinds of pulse that materialise beneath the frantic onward motion (and occasional hemiolas low in the mix); greater resolution for those slower-moving, possibly important notes that emerge from the middle distance; and a liberated presentation of the seemingly circular passages, such that they become expressive and searching. Yet what makes this recording so outstanding is the simple fact that it’s one of the most jaw-droppingly exhilarating performances of anything that i’ve ever heard. To be in the midst of Pettersson’s exuberant, continuously shape-shifting music, its touching intimacies, rowdy processionals, muscular cavortings, askew dances and mind-blowingly immense climaxes is an experience almost beyond words. Symphony No. 13 is revealed here for what it really is: the most vivid, lucid and glorious panoply of sound.
Violin Concerto No. 2 (1977)
28 years after his first violin concerto, Pettersson now returned to that form, though coming in the wake of so many symphonies his Violin Concerto No. 2 would turn out to be something of a hybrid. He described it in these terms:
In reality my work was a Symphony for violin and orchestra. From this results the fact that the solo violin is incorporated into the orchestra like any other instrument. Contrasting with a conventional concerto, this work is a matter of lengthy, expansive sections that frequently resolve themselves in eruptions – not the compartmentalized type of tutti sections in the usual sort of concerto. Thus the solo violin is eliminated as regards audibility – something that the composer has consciously chosen – by letting the soloist often play in unison with the leading parts.
This seemingly peculiar approach to the concerto model makes more sense when once considers its overall direction. Though structured, once again, as a single movement, the work can be thought of as passing through four sections, each of which greatly – and suddenly – clarifies the melodic and harmonic soundworld. In the process, it reveals the music at the concerto’s core: the fourteenth song from Pettersson’s own 24 Barfotasånger, ‘Herren går på ängen’ [The Lord Walks in the Meadow]. A beautiful song of great simplicity, hymn-like in nature, its words reflect on the stifling effect of poverty in a forbidding world, turning in desperation to the fantasy of religious salvation:
“Poverty’s bloom grows where it stands / Mostly among thistles.The Lord walks on the paths, / Narrow paths and broad ones.Brother poor is distressed / On the narrow path.‘I am looking for a little lost sheep’ / Said the good shepherd;Yes, the Lord fetches brother poor / To the broad path.”
Although Pettersson’s music is not remotely programmatic, it’s perhaps not inappropriate to hear something of “poverty’s bloom” in the solo violin, a “little lost sheep” being crowded out in the midst of large, highly vocal orchestral forces. Crowded out, but most definitely not silenced: one of the most extraordinary aspects of Violin Concerto No. 2 is the fact that, for almost the entirety of its over 50-minute duration, the violinist never flags, falters or falls silent. Neither does the rest of the orchestra, though, which makes the resulting continual flow – primarily melodic, though peppered with familiar outbreaks of occasional motivic contagion – is somewhat overwhelming. We’re no longer forced to contend with an aggressively volatile soundscape, but an insistently lyrical one. Slowly, inexorably, even systematically, the work reduces its complexity, with hymn-like hints manifesting earlier on, eventually revealing the song around 40 minutes in. The conclusion of the piece is dominated by this, caressing it with further embellishment and oblique harmonic tangents that, as in so many of Pettersson’s works, finally become completely focused right at the very end.
There are two primary issues that face any soloist and orchestra setting out to realise this work. The first concerns the delicate aspect of balance, in which the soloist should not stand out in the usual way – indeed, according to Pettersson’s remarks it’s probably best not even to think of them as a soloist – but be heard in a kind of middleground, not quite part of the orchestral texture, not quite separate from it. The second arises from the endless melodic stream, in which individual details could be regarded as irrelevant in relation to the larger flow, or vital as a way of making it more tangible and accessible. Arguably these also need to operate in a similar in between space, neither important nor unimportant.
Not surprisingly, these issues are challenging to resolve, and they prove to be the undoing of one of three recordings of the piece, by Isabelle van Keulen with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Thomas Dausgaard. There’s very little evidence here that anyone arrived at a clear understanding of how to solve these issues, as it’s one of the most amorphous, disorienting performances i’ve ever heard of Pettersson’s music. The result is long sections of muddled music, where its multitude of ideas sound confused, not helped by a certain lack of clarity in the performance / recording that keeps these inner details from view. Put simply, almost everything sounds disconnected, giving the work an arbitrary quality rather than the necessary sense of inward compulsion and drive toward an envisaged goal. It’s the only Pettersson recording i’ve yet heard where i’ve been genuinely bored. It’s appalling to hear such lip service being done to the music, in a superficial reading that’s made worse by van Keulen’s delivery, lacking sufficient passion and intensity.
Far, far better – though not perfect – is the performance in the Complete Edition, with soloist Ulf Wallin with the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra under Christian Lindberg. As always, the clarity of the recording is remarkable, so the orchestral textures, even at their most dense, are rendered with vivid transparency. Lindberg clearly feels it’s important they all have a life of their own, which keeps this melodic superabundance continually interesting and engaging. We hear the hints of ‘Herren går på ängen’ at an early stage, a tangible undercurrent making what follows so much more understandable. In this respect, of all three recordings it’s definitely the clearest, and as the song takes over, the Norrköping strings once again demonstrate how gorgeous their tone can be. It’s a judgement call, but to my mind its effect is diminished by placing Wallin far too prominently in the mix. There’s absolutely no doubt he’s a soloist, all the way through, and this undermines Pettersson’s intentions that the violin’s material should occupy a less clear role. Wallin’s vibrato can also sound somewhat relentless, especially in the closing sections, exacerbated by how prominent he is. Considering all of the other positives in this recording, it would be interesting to hear an alternate mix that places the violin further back.
Happily, there’s one recording that outclasses both of these and manages to resolve all of the issues to near perfection, by the performers who gave the world première in January 1980, Ida Haendel with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Herbert Blomstedt. The nature of the violin is nicely ambiguous: early on she seems dominant, leading everyone along, but it doesn’t take long for her to sound dislocated from the orchestra, as if their ideas and hers were not sympathetic but merely adjacent (a bloom among thistles, perhaps). This is reinforced by the lucidity of the recording, with all details coming through such that, in the best possible sense, we’re not sure where to direct our attention. Haendel’s performance is truly incredible, continually begging the question of how it’s possible for someone to keep going with such rapturous, dauntless lyricism for so long. She doesn’t just sing, though; apparently all too aware of the potentially choking environment she’s within, Haendel is equally demonstrative when she needs to be (which is often) – yet, as Pettersson intends, she’s frequently located at the cusp of what we’re hearing, a permanent presence but also a liminal one. Most effective of all is the way Blomstedt handles the melodic reveal, as if discarding layers of obfuscation to expose the gem shining within. It’s like a strange evolution from tangled strands to a clear weave, the song emerging with a sublime inevitability, with the last 15 minutes entirely shaped by it (apart from the briefest possible reference to Barber’s Adagio for Strings at the 46½ minute mark). Blomstedt makes the conclusion positively stately, the culmination of a beautifully nuanced progression from a narrow path of choking interference to a broad path of united agreement.
