I have written an essay about this symphony, which makes use of your video. (Search for Howard James Simmons substack and scroll the list of posts to find 'Pettersson's 13th symphony'.)
YT deletes my comments, Here goes again, Both CPO and BIS have recorded this sym, The CPO /Fraicis is the better recording. Both labels have it at 70 minutes, This **version** as you note is 85 minutes, Conductor for BIS, Lindberg gave me a message on a YT video when I ask the community why the dif in timings,, Lindberg stated the reason for the added 15 minutes was due to the orchestra wishing to **take breaks during the last section of this symphony and these breaks caused a more SUBLIME slower EXTENDED tempo** Can not recall exactly what Lindberg told me, I am guessing , only know he did say the orch demanded breaks,, anyway the Goteborg had it correct. The added lenght raises this sym into a much higher sublimity than the CPO version. My guess is some members within the Goteborg sym could see the higher potential; of the last sections of this sym, other than what the composer intended. You can find it on LP, and there was a classical cd site that actually offered in on bootleg CD copies, Which I have. Its most likely my fav sym from Pettersson as the final dirge is the dirge of all dirges. This sym is almost biographical on my life., and hope to hear it at my last rites ceremony.
Having been the orchestra's general manager and also the producer of this recording, I can confirm that Pettersson very much liked Comissiona's broad tempi. The 1971 premiere made a deep impression on those present in the hall (as well as many who heard it on the radio), which resulted in a demand to program it again. So during the 1970s it was played in no less than three seasons. Unusual for a new and such a complex work. The first two performances were somewhat faster than the recording, yet only to a small degree. I remember that Comissiona several times consulted Pettersson over the telephone, so I assume the recording is close to what the composer wanted. The 9th was a commission for the Gothenburg Symphony. Before the last performance it was decided to make a commercial recording, which was realized in June 1977 and the following year issued by Philips on two LPs. Unfortunately it seems never to have been reissued on CD. This is a shame, not least because Pettersson himself told me, during a visit to his home not long before his passing away, that Sergiu Comissiona was, in his opinion, the most sympathetic interpreter of his music. After I had in the late 1970s suggested to the conductor the 4th symphony to be done in Gothenburg, he was for the rest of his life to be a devoted champion of the composer, eager to play his music in various countries. With his Baltimore Symphony he made a CD recording of the 8th.. Performances of the 7th and the 14th were issued on LP, and in 1982 he premiered the 15th on TV - all of them in Stockholm. Throughout the 1970s, in additions to Comissiona's various contributions, the Gothenburg orchestra with other conductors also played the 5th, 6th and 7th symphonies. As you will understand, Pettersson was during this period a houshold name, beloved by the audience. Unfortunately he could never be personally present, due to his grave illness. He had to be content with radio transmissions and some tape recordings I sent him. I am happy that, thanks to your excellent transfer, the magnificient 9th is now awailable worldwide in a rendition close to what the author must have imagined!
Thank you very much for your comments Sven. I am delighted by what you say, You offer valuable information not readily available to the general public. I would like to incorporate some of what you say in my general introduction, with your permission.
@@michaelberridge1934 Hello Michael! Of course it's ok to include some of my information. I take this opportunity to make a small correction: my suggestion to Comissiona of the 4th symphony took place in the late 1960s, not 1970s as I happened to write.
What a GREAT CHANNEL!!! What a great composer and great breakdown song, please tell me, as someone who cannot stand Bach, Bettovin, and all the other typical classical composers, if I tell you I love Arvo Part, tell me please, what other composers do you believe I would like such as the song above?
i want to thank You for the informations about this composer! In the middle-european offroad-trip out of tonality and universal respect in the last 70 years there will be not so much left, maybe Henze, Zimmer, Zimmermann, Nono, Morricone
0:00 - Wenn mein Schatz Hochzeit macht 3:57 - Ging heut' morgens übers Feld 8:56 - Ich hab' ein glühend Messer 12:05 - Die zwei blaumen Augen von meinem Sentimentalität
He remains the great, unknown continent, filled with mountains and gorges, with lakes and deserts. This is where musicology must capitulate. The listener should be silent, tremble and weep.
Shattering! This is one of those times I wish I could read an orchestral score, to appreciate both the visual and aural architecture of the 9th. How appropriate that the final image is that of Andromeda, our neighbor, more than 2 million light years distant. The light we see today having left that island universe at a time when home sapiens was but a proto species. Pettersson allows for the mind's free range.
In these words that Mahler wrote himself I hear a man who loves life an nature and is desperate for true love but also hear a lot of sadness and gloom, hear a broken soul who lost hope, both seemingly relating to two of his symphonies, the happy nature loving part to his first, the Titan, the sad one full of gloom to the last movement of the ninth and they seem to be biographical , a sensitive soul who loves life and nature and who wants to be loved but painfully hurt by life and disloyalty.
I agree so much! Your comment is not just accurate but helpful in our interpretation of his great symphonies. Do you know the tenth symphony? Try listening in relation to the first song here. The one hopeful thing in all this is that the seeking of redemption is still there, even in the tenth's finale. Utterly terrifying opening, deeply peaceful end.
@@petermyers7562 Thank you :) It's time for bed but I promise I will listen tomorrow. I think at the end he came to terms with his mortality which he knew was coming. He had a bad heart. And that was reflected at the end of 10th. But that is just I guess. Will write tomorrow after listening to it. Goodnight.
ok, 12 minutes in, it starts to build toward something, i'm starting to groove it, but then it relents, if you're going to do this, then do it, go all the way......strikes me that it's got kind of a movie score vibe??? at 15 minutes starting to go again, had your chance to go again to explode, but no, grrrrr.... 16 minutes will you explode....ugh, no.....why won't you explode?.... 17 minutes, here we go again, will you do it? will you? no. ugh...........ok. I've changed my mind. Yes, I like it. Yes it's good. but it's not going to make it to my list of symphonies to admire because it doesn't give me the climax I need.....at 19 minutes, built up again, but i knew you wouldn't do it..... nope, no climax..... Interesting music, curious to listen to, rich, ...... I just wish he took this to the climax i expected
i came to this via david hurwitz;s list of most emotionally draining pieces. before then, I hadn't heard of Pettersson. So, this piece and style is new to me. My first impression is that it is odd. odd? I think of symphonies as grand orchestral pieces, and I recognize that what this means to others is up to interpretation, but this doesn't feel like a symphony to me. It doesn't feel grand? it feels melancholy. dissonant. sometimes percussive. it doesn't seem to be going anywhere??? ....... so i gotta go after just 10 minutes.... it was intriguing, a bit captivating with it's odd start, but not a symphony...
I was a double bassist at the University of Wisconsin Madison in 1986 when I was conducted by the great Catherine Comet with the U.W.-Madison Symphony Orchestra. I was only a Sophomore in college, but I understood the significance of this moment during rehearsals and concerts. A turning point in my life.
Gloomy, beautiful. Major-key cadences here and there keep this superb symphony from descending into unrelenting pain and despair. Overall, it’s less acerbic - and more accessible - than others of his works, as others have noted here and elsewhere.
Excerpt Pacific Shift [pub 1985], professor William Irwin Thompson, Lindisfarne founder: "Marshall McLuhan has said that the artists are the early warning systems for cultural change; so if we wish to understand the "Log of Earth"/acceleration of history from another perspective, we should look around to find the Bosches of our own day. One contemporary artist who is much taken with the historical relevance of mysticism and prophesy is the German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen.. I had occasion to attend the premiere of Stockhausen's Jahreslauf in Paris, and in this work I was startled to find a "synchronicity" to the "Log of Earth" and the comments of the Dalai Lama (humans change their environment too fast, then their environment changes at a rate faster than we can adapt).... [long description of concert pg 8-10]... when I discussed Jahreslauf with Stockhausen the day after its premiere, he seemed satisfied with my interpretation, but he went even further in his explanation of the unearthly music..."
This music has a warm glow & a stoic resignation. It has a grandeur & chops about more than when I first heard it. I think Josef Suk is worth comparing with Pettersson. That's not a red herring, & neither is Antonio Fragoso a Portuguese composer who didn't live long enough to compose on this scale. Fragoso's "Romantic Suite" has a depth & range of emotion which I find astonishing. He died (aged 21) of the flu epidemic in 1918, the same year as Lili Boulanger & Debussy. Fragoso was a truely great composer, as was Allan Pettersson. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-pzqR2jo4R3E.html
Why is he not better known?! In his day, (and his was a very long, and greatly celebrated career,) Dietrick Fisher-Dieskau was one of the two or three most widely known singers throughout the entire world. He was widely regarded as the greatest lieder singer of all time. The real question, one asked repeatedly by older people in all areas of endeavor is how is it that this younger generation is so stultifyingly ignorant of anything and anyone of accomplishment who came before them.
Who was the considered the best singer in 1682? If you didnt know that off the top of your head, you're so stultifying ignorant of those with accomplishment before you and you should be ashamed of yourself. Or, that's your logic anyway.
