He took up violin at 12 and then was a student at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Stockholm. And I take issues with some statements of fact in the review as well. reaches too far in trying to construct a class-based rejection by Sweden of Pettersson and his place in Swedish music. And you get rather deeply into the song вЂњYou Are LyingвЂќ before it becomes evident that the вЂњyouвЂќ who does so much lying is God, who tramples flowers and kills them.)Д«ut while PetterssonвЂ™s early upbringing was difficult in the extreme, I do think N.L. (God is walking barefoot on thorns and thistles. As for the Barefoot Songs it is important to realize that the pastoral and pleasant impression that the title imparts has nothing to do with the texts. IвЂ™d be prepared to second his nomination as SwedenвЂ™s best, although I do like what I have heard of Stenhammar. I am always happy to see attention paid to Allan Pettersson and his music, music which I (and I suspect many others) first got to know via DoratiвЂ™s recording of the Symphony No. Meanwhile his music seems to have become acknowledged widely, in spite of its expressive cruelties:Дark music from a dark age. All very stupid and a fruit of WW II and modernist ideologies. So, if Sweden had labelled Pettersson its contemporary typically Swedish вЂGreat ComposerвЂ™ it would have seemed backward, outdated, oldfashioned, provincial. But much of it is as unpleasant as atonal modernism especially because it is traditional: dissonances still do their painful work. вЂ¦ and a great one, as can be heard clearly in this symphony written in the sixties (!), during the heyday of Klangkunst and the like. Pettersson was a late-romantic composer in the Mahlerian mould: Grieg, Nielssen and Sibelius were вЂpre-modernвЂ™ composers, Sibelius already being considered a вЂcase of doubtsвЂ™ as a late-romantic composer who had the temerity to live untill deep into the 20th century (and he got silent, after all). But it is entirely understandable that Pettersson was not generally accepted as SwedenвЂ™s National Great Composer.

Sibelius 5 recordings