Pettersson: Symphony No. 14

In their series of Allan Pettersson's symphonies, Christian Lindbergand the Norrköping Symphony Orchestrahave arrived at the Fourteenth Symphony, completed in 1978 and given its first performance in 1981, one year after the death of the composer. As several of its predecessors, No. 14 is in one extended movement and is scored for large forces, including an expanded percussion section. But there are also important traits that set it apart. Pettersson, who had studied twelve-tone composition for René Leibovitzin the early 1950's, never adopted the technique fully but in the present work the traces are more evident than in his other symphonies: the opening few bars contain all of the notes of the chromatic scale, and throughout the work Pettersson makes extensive use of compositional techniques associated with twelve-tone music.

In several earlier works, Petterssonhad alluded to his song cycle 'Barefoot Songs', but in the present symphony he quotes himself extensively -the melody of Klokarochknythänder(Wise Men and Clenched Hands) appears no less than five times in its entirety and becomes crucial to the structure of the symphony. The present disc is the sixth instalment in a series that has received distinctions such as Empfehlung(Klassik-Heute.de), Clef d'or2011(ResMusica.com), Disco excepcional(Scherzo) and Critics' Choice(Gramophone). Includedwiththe new recording is a bonus DVD containinga film producedby Swedish Television afterthe deathofthe composer. In the courseofthe film, hereprovided withEnglish subtitles, wemeetthe composerhimself, membersofhisfamily, colleaguesfrom histimeas an orchestralplayerand musicianssuchas the violinist Ida Haendel.