Somewhat incredibly, for a man crippled by rheumatoid arthritis and essentially confined to his apartment (four floors above ground level without an elevator), Allan Pettersson managed to begin and complete his next two symphonies within a single year.
Symphony No. 14 (1978)
Compared to No. 13, a very different character pervades Symphony No. 14, in which playfulness and caprice are entirely replaced by a palpable sense of struggle. Of itself, that’s nothing new in Pettersson’s work; a great deal of the volatility in the earlier symphonies arises from an intense push-pull of contrasting ideas, jostling for attention in an often packed melee. Here, though, the tension arises from by now very familiar binary impulses toward lyricism or rhythmic momentum. Whereas in Symphony No. 13 it can be argued that the music’s urge to sing is an inclination throughout – one that proves to be unassailable, and ultimately attains periods of unbroken prominence – in No. 14 the situation is far less certain. Indeed, while No. 13, on a first listen, might suggest an almost impenetrable level of seething inventive flux, No. 14 arguably proves to be even more challenging due to the vagaries of its internal conflict, and the ambiguities of its narrative and trajectory. That being said, as i’ve mentioned previously, Pettersson exhibits clear stylistic and behavioural traits in his work, on both the small- and large-scale, so anyone familiar with what’s gone before shouldn’t find the symphony to be in any way insurmountable.
Yet perhaps it’s okay to find Symphony No. 14 a listening struggle, initally at least, as in that regard we enter (or are pulled) into the spirit of the work’s entire modus operandi. One of the primary aspects of the challenge is that its 50-minute, single-movement span allows very few obvious moments to snatch a breath. They are there, but they’re never anything but momentary, and this, coupled to a pronounced turning away from behaviourally distinct episodes, means that we’re forced to contend with its seething fluidity and hang on for dear life. However, although the landscape is critically erratic, it’s still a struggle between two clearly contrasting elements, and focusing on this ebb and flow can be a helpful way in.
The strings and winds take the lyrical lead in the work, while the brass and percussion opt for propulsion and drive. They’re not opposed in all things, though, and one of the distinct tendencies of the more burly music is toward grandeur, which in its own way is not a million miles from the impulse to lyricism. All the same, the means by which this grandeur is asserted is a kind of musical brute force, through varying forms of dogged repetitions that attempt to quantise everything else into its metric grid. Pettersson doesn’t opt for obviously evolving motifs this time, which adds a haphazard quality to these attempts that only ramps up the white hot intensity further. Lyrically speaking, melody comes to the fore on numerous occasions, though as i’ve indicated rarely with complete clarity, often cutting itself off in order to contend with something external, or being rudely shut down by the same. As in Violin Concerto No. 2, Pettersson again explores one of his Barfotasånger melodies – on this occasion No. 2, “Klokar och knythänder” [Wise Men and Clenched Hands] – though unlike the concerto it’s not fundamental to the work’s material genesis, initially appearing clearly (around 5½ minutes in) but thereafter becoming more of an undercurrent.
The musical stability is undone by more of the vertiginous swells that have characterised many of Pettersson’s symphonic environments, yet around two-thirds through there’s a striking sequence when, finally, not only does melody take hold for a time, but there’s the distinct impression of something genuinely lush beneath. It’s lost, but a heightened sense of passion in the strings afterward seems to be a direct result of this, though the way it drags the symphony to a triadic conclusion (as with all Pettersson’s output, let’s not even dream of calling it “tonal”) seems more an act of desperation than a convincing channeling of the musical narrative. The final cadence is arrived at in the most dirty way imaginable, and it’s hard not to hear it as a kind of “pseudo-dominant”, poised to set off again as the struggle continues inexorably on.
The challenges of Symphony No. 14 make their presence felt in all three of the available recordings. Most problematic is Sergiu Comissiona with the Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, where, rather than trying to make sense of the turmoil, huge passages of the work are presented as uninvolving turbulence, as if viewed from a distance with a cold, almost scientific gaze. This vague sense of what’s important at any given moment puts everything in the orchestra on the same flat level, providing little to no sense of perspective, compounded by some shoddy coordination and intonation. As a result, it’s impossible to know what to care about, and attempting to move away from the small- to the large-scale doesn’t really help. It’s best during the few relatively clear lyrical passages, but there isn’t much of that, and overall they just make the work sound frustratingly opaque.
Johan Arnell makes a lot more sense of the symphony in his recording with the Radio-Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. Earlier on in the performance there’s a weird mix of clarity and muddiness, though in hindsight there’s something rather effective about painting the first 10-or-so minutes in this light, as it makes what follows more ear-opening and exciting. Despite being a CPO recording, the lower registers are (for once) captured very well, though there’s again the impression of an orchestra recorded at a distance, which always detracts from the immediacy and enormity of Pettersson’s music. Arnell really highlights the contrasts between the work’s two key elements, teasing out some lovely lyrical threads running through the texture, establishing a vigorous tension with the climactic surges and outbursts around them. Especially interesting is an emphasis in this recording on a kind of “Romantic” sensibility; too often, Pettersson’s symphonies are mentioned in the same sentence as Mahler (with whom he has essentially nothing in common), but here, Mahler often comes to mind in the way Arnell shapes certain sections, particularly a weird waltz-like passage around halfway through. The grandeur doesn’t always come through clearly, and towards the end the horns’ enthusiasm gets the better of them, and they become a bit wayward, but the conclusion is superbly handled, with that final chord sitting extremely awkwardly, which is entirely appropriate.
Yet again (i’ve lost track of how many times they’ve trumped the other recordings) the best recording so far comes from Christian Lindberg with the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, included in the Complete Edition. Lindberg takes a full five minutes more than Comissiona and Arnell, and that’s partly to enhance even further the contrast between melodic and rhythmic music, but also to allow a bit more time to shape the structure, in the process making it far more intelligible and accessible. As always in these BIS recordings, the ultra-vivid clarity is enormously helpful, making apparent aspects that are obfuscated or entirely lost in the others. A triple metre pulse is discernible less than a minute in, something that will become significant later in the work, and the pushiness of the brass and percussion is more pronounced, with their pattern of using forms of assertive repetition already established within the first few minutes. Tempo and metre changes are very clear throughout, which significantly aids in following the tortuous narrative, and those lengthy sequences that Comissiona failed to disentangle are here made transparent, which is not to say they become easy to follow, but a great deal easier. The melodic music is, once again, seriously beautiful (the Norrköping winds and strings have the most gorgeous timbres), and the orchestra’s apparent fondness for Pettersson’s wild processions returns here in some of the grander moments, forming what seems like a triumphal march a little after the halfway point. Crucially, those fleeting moments for a breath are something Lindberg latches onto, allowing large accumulations a beat or two to subside before pressing on. Symphony No. 14 is perhaps always going to be a daunting proposition, but in Lindberg’s hands, Norrköping have made it not merely intelligible but coherent and thrilling.
Symphony No. 15 (1978)
Symphony No. 15 is only three-quarters the length of its predecessor, yet in some respects it’s just as challenging, and a great deal more enigmatic. Pettersson’s symphonies have often featured volatile states of flux, but here, while the level of invention is no less ambitious, he mischievously breaks up some of that volatility with numerous short pauses or brief moments of suspension, which act as structural markers between different states of behaviour. Once again, these states are polarised toward free-floating lyricism and driving momentum, but in Symphony No. 15 Pettersson is less concerned with using those to create an unequivocal trajectory for the work. No clear-cut progression from convolution to clarity here.
One of the characteristics of the work is a prevalence of pulse. Most music has a pulse, of course, but the way it’s deployed here is such that, even in passages where things are more nebulous or have taken a reflective turn, Pettersson often subtly underpins them with a discrete but audible regular pulse somewhere in the orchestra. Yet that notion of regularity takes some time to become plausible, as throughout the symphony’s opening couple of sections there’s a strong sense of playfulness with regard to pulse, switching between different metres constantly, resulting in music that keeps shifting in order to fit. This doesn’t mean it’s all about rhythmic concerns, though; these metric shifts are also highly varied behaviourally, passing through gruff brass accents and driving strings into an unexpected dark place that’s soon swept aside, before everyone becomes more exercised. The level of drama is enormous, all the more so as the pulse calms down only for certain parts of the orchestra to periodicially project marked accents, possibly in the hope of asserting some kind of new metric. Few composers would be as prepared as Pettersson is to be flowing one minute, entering a dreamscape the next, ascending to a large, high plateau after that, but that’s precisely where its energetic narrative takes us, until a point where the convolution seems to have reached a limit, whereupon everything is abruptly frozen.
Thereafter, lyrical aspects begin to become more prominent. At this point it’s string-focused (as it usually is) with fragments of line elsewhere, but there’s a brief hint of another Pettersson processional, a sideways tilt into another dreamy world where a solo violin leads the way with light winds and glockenspiel giving support. Some motivic elements appear, but they don’t lead to any kind of evolution; instead, that prevalence of pulse i mentioned before becomes more and more apparent here, usually in the percussion. Yet what follows this extremely intense section, everything having been held up once again, is extraordinary. A little under three-quarters of the way through, the symphony enters its most extended melodic episode, and in many ways sounds quite different from Pettersson’s usual lyrical mode. It brings to mind the anguished music of Mahler’s Tenth Symphony (as well as the Mesto movement from Pettersson’s own Concerto No. 3 for String Orchestra), dark and stately, assertive but fragile, here suffused with warmth in the lower registers. These amazing five minutes take us far from all the hectic activity, and while it, in turn, is broken up, its effect prevails, with the orchestra prevented from becoming unruly, and darker hues continuing to permeate what follows. Something of a return of the opening music occurs a few minutes before the end, but there’s a stronger sense of stability now, with the pulse in the timps now acting to solidify the music, as if hammering each beat in place. One final pause, and Symphony No. 15 ends with a brief faux-hymn in the winds, and a closing crescendo that seems to be taking us, triumphantly, to the final chord, but it fails to fully resolve, and we pass beyond it to an altogether less certain chord, weak and strange.
It’s interesting to note that the three recordings of the work – all of which, for once, are first-rate – vary considerably in their durations. The longest, featuring the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin conducted by Peter Ruzicka, is very good at presenting the symphony’s key elements, particularly its plethora of rival pulses, and the pushiness of its internal dynamics as the sections of the orchestra wrestle with each other. There are times when Ruzicka seems to want to make it akin to a Shostakovich symphony (particularly during the short-lived motivic episode) which doesn’t fit its tone, but the rendition of the lyrical sequence is fabulous, seemingly taking us into a huge, closing Adagio. As with many of the CPO label’s recordings, clarity is not its strongest quality, and the convoluted passages can sound a touch confusing, yet in many ways they actually are, so this isn’t necessarily a drawback. The ending is weird, though, with the unexpected final chord sounding like a hiccup, as if the piece lurched there by mistake.
Three minutes shorter is Christian Lindberg with the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, a recording one might have expected BIS to include in the Complete Edition, but they chose not to. Clarity is again eye-wateringly vivid in their recording, bringing out many more details and making the metrically complicated opening more tempestuous. This is arguably the most effusively energetic of these three recordings, though Norrköping’s track record with slow music again leads to exquisitely rendered dream sequences, the symphony floating gently in space, and a greater sense of reflection amid the more rambunctious passages. Norrköping’s ability to clarify Pettersson’s instrumental complexity is second to none, and a host of new features materialise in this performance, including weird protruding pitches around 23 minutes in, with another pulse revealed deep beneath. They make the Mahlerian quasi-Adagio absolutely incredible to behold, and appropriately turn down the intensity through the closing 10 or so minutes, leading to an emphatic coda with a final chord that, here, makes complete sense.
i’ve just realised that every time Leif Segerstam has recorded one of Pettersson’s symphonies, it’s turned out to be the best, and that’s again true of his Symphony No. 15, again featuring the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, and which is included in the Complete Edition. Three minutes shorter than Lindberg (almost six shorter than Ruzicka), this is a no holds barred interpretation that drives on through the quick music, yet manages to elicit a palpable sense of grandeur and ominousness along the way. Of the three, this has the most wonderful sense of scale, with the climaxes punchy and overwhelming, carrying enormous weight – which, at times, is used to suggest it’s this very weight that is causing the music to slow down. The symphony’s first significant turn towards lyricism has a lovely richness, evoking Violin Concerto No. 2 in the way harmony suddenly feels clarified, with Segerstam shaping it into something like a chorale, to mesmerising effect. The main lyrical sequence is so powerful words almost fail me, just staggeringly intense, and in its achingly soft conclusion, conveyed with a quiet electricity, becomes profoundly moving. As with Lindberg, the coda makes total sense, twisting between song and momentum to an ending that, as it no doubt should, feels less like a full stop than a question mark.
