Search - Allan Pettersson, Alun Francis, Glasgow BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra :: Allan Pettersson: Symphony No. 2; Symphonic Movement

Allan Pettersson (1911-1980) was a Swedish composer whose seventeen symphonies stand as a powerful record of this composer's prolixity. His music also does its best to go beyond both modernism and neo-romanticism. His symphonies are usually one-movement affairs that tend to avoid any kind of emotional blather or self-pity; they are instead rigorous, unyielding, assertions of a very somber (and sober) musical personality. They have power and a kind of intellectual charm, but they are among the best written in this century. You can hear where Schnittke, Segerstam, and Silvestrov got some of their ideas. --Paul Cook