Allan Pettersson - Violin Concerto No. 2 (Isabelle van Keulen)

Information

Composer: Allan Pettersson

• Violin Concerto No. 2 (revised version)

Isabelle van Keulen, violin
Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra
Thomas Dausgaard, conductor

Date: 2006
Label: cpo

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Review

Andreas K. W. Meyer’s notes provide a timeline for the life of Allan Petterson (1911–1980), “orchestra violinist, composer, oddball.” In any event, he cast his Second Violin Concerto in one, almost hour-long, movement (the recording has been divided into 10 tracks for those who might want to study specific sections). Its elfin opening, with swirling tonal parts in the upper registers surrounding the stratospheric solo, provides little preparation for the dense textures to come. If these seem to lack transparency, listeners should be aware that van Keulen and Dausgaard play the Concerto in a “revised version,” in which the composer supposedly significantly lightened the original. It may be no accident that this dense undergrowth continuously threatens to drown the solo part, the brilliant writing of which could hold its own with an accompaniment less aggressively dense than this one. After the tonality evaporates along with the mood of the early measures (only to return satisfyingly at the end), the piece might be taken to resemble in its textures Penderecki’s First Concerto, but the solo seems more idiomatic, and ingratiating, too, in Pettersson’s work; there’s more flirtation, however fleeting, with tonality, for example at the a tempo at figure 41 in the score (the designation of the fourth track) and even more strikingly through most of the a tempo of the seventh and at the beginning of the cantando, tempo IV of the eighth and ninth tracks—and, throughout, woodwind sonorities highlight many passages. Meyer relates that Ida Haendel, the dedicatee, gave the work its premiere on January 25, 1980 (it had been composed between 1977 and 1979).

It might not strike most listeners that Pettersson based the Concerto on a poem, God Goes over the Meadows , and his own musical setting of it. The text continues (in Susan Marie Praeder’s translation), “but only between thistles,” and this line may offer some insight into the work’s thickets of thorns and brambles. Meyer points out that his song’s folk-like style provided the “material point of departure.” So the intermittent tonality and passages of simpler, less entangled, lyricism may hearken to this fons et origo . Whatever lies at the center of this massive Concerto, however, its accessibility to audiences may depend less upon it than upon the composer’s ear for striking sonorities, for dramatic contrasts, and for soaring, effective writing for the solo instrument. Since Pettersson wrote his First Violin Concerto, according to the notes, in 1949, for Violin and String Quartet, this one represents a quantum leap into complex sonorities while remaining within the genre of the Violin Concerto. Adventurous listeners should find the work, the performance by both soloist and orchestra, and the wide-ranging and stark recorded sound especially rewarding. Strongly recommended to them.

-- Robert Maxham, FANFARE

More reviews:
https://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/pettersson-violin-concerto-no-2-revised-version
https://www.allmusic.com/album/allan-pettersson-violin-concerto-no-2-mw0001570133
https://www.amazon.com/Violin-Concerto-No-Isabelle-Keulen/dp/B000L42J6S

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Allan Pettersson (19 September 1911 – 20 June 1980) was a Swedish composer and violist. Pettersson studied violin and viola at the conservatory of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music, and composition in Paris with René Leibowitz, Arthur Honegger, Olivier Messiaen, and Darius Milhaud. 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. Most of his music has now been recorded at least once and much of it is now available in published score.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allan_Pettersson

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Isabelle van Keulen (born 16 December, 1966) is a Dutch violinist and violist. She studied at the Sweelinck Conservatorium (now Conservatorium van Amsterdam) with Davina van Wely, then at the Mozarteum Salzburg where her teacher was Sandor Vegh. Her breakthrough came in 1984 when she won the Eurovision Young Musician of the Year. Van Keulen was artistic director of Delft Chamber Music Festival (1997-2006) and the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra (2009-2012). Since 2012 she is a professor at the Luzern University of Arts. Van Keulen plays a Guarneri del Gesù violin from 1734, the ex-Novello.
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabelle_van_Keulen
http://www.isabellevankeulen.com/biography

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