Allan Pettersson, Symphony No 9, Sergiu Comissiona

People are repeatedly drawn back to Pettersson’s scores because of their redemptive power and the composer’s ability to draw a tearful serene epiphany out of exhaustion and a battered spirit. The music is fraught with tension and anxiety, turbulent, distraught, grievously wounded, yet sometimes singing with hard-won hope. This speaks to the experience of many a person in the current world crisis. Pettersson succeeded more than any other composer of the 20th Century, in rendering audible his involvement in the cause of humanity and the humane with his artistic identification with the oppressed. His music conveys an interior and very personal world. His own suffering arose from his paralyzing illness, his meagre financial circumstances, and the neglect of his music. The score of the 9th symphony bears the completion date of 1st July 1970. The premiere took place in February the following year by the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra under it’s then principal conductor Sergiu Comissiona