Allan Pettersson - Symphony No. 8 (Thomas Sanderling)

Information

Composer: Allan Pettersson

1. Symphony No. 8: Part I
2. Symphony No. 8: Part II

Radio-Symphonie-Orchester Berlin
Thomas Sanderling, conductor
Date: 1984
Label: CPO

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Review

PERFORMANCE: ***** / SOUND: *****

How do you begin to describe the Swede Allan Pettersson (1911-80)? One of ‘four children of an alcoholic and violent smith and a pietistic, weak mother, who grew up in the slums of Stockholm... Orchestral violist, composer, oddball. A man whose music evades all attempts at labelling... a fighter’, says Andres KW Meyer in his booklet note. For Pettersson himself: ‘The music forming my work is my own life, its blessings, its curses – in order to rediscover the song once sung by the soul.’ Between 1951 and his death from cancer, Pettersson completed 16 symphonies and a fragment of a 17th. Only in his late fifties, with the advocacy and recording of No. 7 (1966-67) by Antal Dorati, did he find international fame and belated recognition at home. Like No. 8 (1968-69) and No. 14 (1978), the scale of the Seventh is Brucknerian, a huge single-movement edifice, highly complex in organisation. The Eighth spans two sections – akin to Schubert’s, it has been suggested. But Pettersson is afraid to stop ‘because when the music ends, this dreadful world is there again’. No. 14 is about ‘a music that in its alternation between gentle oscillation and sudden outburst seeks to mirror our own life in its dualistic position between resignation and hope’ (notes to the German premiere, May 1988). Spacious recordings from concert performances strong in commitment. Sample them. These great, lonely, visionary, testaments of our time have to be heard.

-- Ates Orga, BBC Music Magazine

More reviews:
http://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/pettersson-symphony-no-8

http://www.amazon.com/Pettersson-Symphony-No-8-Allan/dp/B000001RTD
Complete symphonies (box set on CPO)
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2007/Feb07/Petterson_7772472.htm
http://www.classical.net/music/recs/reviews/c/cpo77247a.php

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Allan Pettersson (19 September 1911 – 20 June 1980) was a Swedish composer. Today he is considered one of the most important Swedish composers of the 20th century. His symphonies developed a devoted international following, starting in the final decade of his life. Pettersson’s music has a very distinctive sound and can hardly be confused with that of any other 20th-century composer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allan_Pettersson

***

Thomas Sanderling (born October 2, 1942, in Novosibirsk) is a German conductor. He is the eldest son of famous conductor Kurt Sanderling. He studied with Hans Swarowsky, and worked as assistant to Herbert von Karajan and Leonard Bernstein. During his career he conducted all important orchestras as well as at many international opera houses. Thomas Sanderling is one of the most important conductors of Russian repertoire nowadays
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sanderling

http://www.allmusic.com/artist/thomas-sanderling-mn0002269321/biography

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

FLAC, tracks

Links in comment

Enjoy!