Allan Pettersson

Allan Pettersson was a Swedish composer known for his dark, challenging works. In addition to his 16 symphonies, he also composed chamber music, songs, orchestral pieces, and concertos. He was born in 1911 in Vastra Ryd, a small town 300km southwest of Stockholm. His father was an abusive alcoholic, and his mother played the guitar and sang folk songs and religious hymns. Pettersson was the youngest of four children and endured a difficult and troubled childhood. At home, his parents were in constant conflict, and he fought with other children at school. Around the age of ten he started playing the violin, initially learning from his older brother. He sold Christmas cards until he saved enough money to buy his first violin and a book of exercises by Hans Sitt. From this point on, he devoted his spare time to teaching himself how to play, which also kept him out of trouble. He performed in pubs, dancehalls, and festivals until he was 19, when he enrolled at the Swedish Royal Conservatory of Music. There he became interested in the viola and composed vocal and chamber music. In 1938 he won the Jenny Lind Scholarship, which allowed him to travel to Paris to study with Maurice Vieux for a year. After returning to Sweden, he continued his education privately and studied harmony with Herbert Rosenberg and composition with Karl-Birger Blomdahl. He worked as a section violist in the Stockholm Concert Society Orchestra, and in 1943 he began composing his 24 Barefoot Songs cycle. The lyrics, which he also wrote, reflect on his difficult childhood and growing up in poverty. By this time, he was known as a highly refined violist, but he also had a reputation for his difficult and abrasive personality. In 1950 he decided to devote himself completely to composition, and he stayed in Paris from 1951 to 1953 to study with Honegger, Milhaud, and Leibowitz. Upon his return, he left his position in the orchestra so he could focus on composing, and he started to suffer from rheumatoid arthritis. He was not widely known as a composer until the premiere performance of his Symphony No. 7 in 1968, conducted by Antal Dorati. The concert was a huge success and Pettersson began receiving more and more commissions for new works. It was also the last concert he'd be able to attend, since his arthritis made it impossible for him to use the stairs. He was essentially trapped in his apartment until 1976, when the Swedish government moved him into a lavish ground-floor level home. Throughout the '70s, he continued composing and received several Swedish awards. He became a frequent topic in the Swedish press and was seen as a hero to the poor and underprivileged. He passed away in 1980 while working on his 17th symphony. ~ RJ Lambert, Rovi