Allan Pettersson - Vox Humana; 6 Sånger (Daniel Hansson)

Information

Composer: Allan Pettersson

• Vox Humana, cantata for soloists, choir & string orchestra
• 6 Sånger (arr. Staffan Storm)

Kristina Hellgren, soprano
Anna Grevelius, alto
Conny Thimander, tenor
Jakob Högström, baritone

Musica Vitae

Ensemble SYD

Daniel Hansson, conductor

Date: 2023

Label: cpo

https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/cpo/detail/-/art/allan-pettersson-vox-humana-fuer-chor-orchester/hnum/7118034

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Review

Allan Pettersson’s cantata Vox humana (1974) was composed in close proximity to his choral Twelfth Symphony, De döda på torget. Both set poems by modern, politically minded Latin American writers, Neruda exclusively in the symphony, a diverse range (including Neruda) in the cantata. Another composer (Britten, for instance, or Henze) might have set the 18 texts as a song-cycle but Pettersson’s strong sense of flow melds them into something grander; the varying textures of soloists, chorus – the excellent Ensemble SYD, sometimes accompanied, sometimes a cappella – and strings fuse into a cogent larger whole like the instrumental sections of a Pettersson symphony.

Daniel Hansson directs a fine, sensitive performance, bringing out the instrumental lines and synthesising the whole even more closely than did Stig Westerberg in his pioneering BIS recording. That 1976 performance was released originally on LP in 1981 and still sounds terrific on my copy of the 1994 CD reissue. If anything, Westerberg’s instrumental lines are cleaner and his chorus (the Swedish Radio Choir) were on top form. I do prefer Kristina Hellgren as the soprano in Hansson’s version, stronger in the higher parts than was Marianne Mellnäs; otherwise there is little to choose between the two sets of performers.

BIS chose Hilding Rosenberg’s song-cycle The Shepherd of Days as coupling, a piece I would not want to be without. CPO gives us more Pettersson, in Staffan Storm’s arrangement for baritone, strings and harp of the six early songs (1935). Storm may sound like a Marvel superhero’s alter ego but he is a distinguished composer of chamber, orchestral and electroacoustic music, and a senior lecturer in music theory and composition at Malmö Academy within Lund University. His transcriptions are sensitive and subtle, and beautifully sung by Jakob Högström.

-- Guy Rickards, Gramophone

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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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Daniel Hansson is University Music Director at Malmo University and Artistic Director for Malmo University and Ensemble SYD.

https://mau.se/en/persons/daniel.hansson/

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