Sinfonie Nr.11 Allan Pettersson

Studienpartitur

Pettersson's Symphony No.11 was finished in 1973, being commissioned by the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, which hoped to receive economic support from the NOMUS foundation, but when this was not forthcoming the orchestra was compelled to cancel the commission. Pettersson, for his part, had already decided to dedicate his Eleventh symphony to the orchestra, and felt that their interest and the commission were payment enough.

The first performance took place in Bergen on October 24 of 1974, and the work was scheduled for performance by the Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra the following year. When the day of the concert arrived, however, the symphony had been replaced, because the temperamental composer had at that time forbidden the orchestra from playing his music. The first Swedish performance did not take place until 1980.

It is possible that many of his ideas were conceived along with the previous symphony in his time in the hospital. The two works can be seen as complementary. His friend and biographer Leif Aare calls them Thesis and Antithesis, saying that if the tenth symphony is somehow a musical confrontation with the outside world, the composer paints in his eleventh symphony a confrontation with the inside world. The work has a structure and duration similar to that of its previous symphony. Its only movement has been divided for descriptive reasons into five parts.

The first part begins in a way that seems sweeter than the music of his earlier symphony. A lyrical melody develops slowly in a desolate climate but without tension. But it is only apparent, the first bursts soon appear but without reaching the aggressiveness of the tenth. The atmosphere is rarefied until reaching a series of chiaroscuros that introduce us in the second part. A kind of deep lament is repeated. In its complex polyphony, more reassuring elements appear, such as a hymn from the depths that tries to get out of the abyss. But finally it is drowned by despair.

In the third part, a new element appears focused on the acute registers. The tension increases in its final part that leads us to the beginning of the fourth part. Diverse rhythmic figures are repeated, arriving at a new obsessive energy-shifting section, which wears out in its final part. A new delusional section leads us to the last part. A sudden change presents us with a series of atonal phrases on the string, in the form of chills. The music calms down by forming a kind of hymn. But it does not fully develop as on other occasions, being dominated by tensions. A phrase of a more hopeful type closes the symphony.

It is a less strident work than his previous symphony, as if exploring a more interior world. With this we can understand it as complementary, in the way expressed by Leif Aare. Despite everything, it is a sombre work, not contributing anything positive to this exploration of the inner world.