Thank you, George. So it really IS that simple! 

I don't find BAZ's late works depressing either, much as they're an expression of desperation - the fact that they're an expression of something betokens some possibility that humanity isn't completely lost... for every B A Zimmermann who writes a piece like Ich wandte mich um... there are thousands who have no possibility of expressing anything, and this I find depressing.

Very droll, I'm sure, but I'd consider leaving "lost" out of it, if I were you; Sir Richard might not take too kindly thereto...

Best,

Alistair

You have a glittering academic career ahead!

I can accept in principle that "just because a piece of work doesn't have a definite depressing agenda...it therefore affirms life" but (again without wishing to speak for or even paraphrase Richard here) I still think that, in Pettersson's case (since he is the thread topic here), whilst his music often explores dark, bleak and tragic areas and profound pessimism, it nevertheless manages not to end up merely being sorry for itself and, for that reason, allied to the very fact that Pettersson himself managed to develop his language and make the effort to translate his thoughts into musical expressions has something at least potentially "life-affirming" about it, especially when you consider the supreme odds against which - and the sheer defiance with which - he managed to write the Ninth and Tenth symphonies.

Best,

Alistair

Increpatio, I think the problem here might be that there perhaps isn't agreement on what "depressing" and "life-affirming" mean to different people. If you can say that you don't see any works that you know of as being life-affirming then I'd have to say your idea of "life-affirming" is very different from mine, since as far as I'm concerned the existence of a work of art is a token of the contined existence of the human imagination, so that in this sense the statement "art is life-affirming" is akin to saying "art is the product of human beings". It's nothing to do with what the "agenda" of the work of art has. Kafka's ability and indeed perceived necessity to express truths about the human condition in ways that hadn't been (couldn't have been) thought of before is in the end (I'm repeating myself here, I know) not anything like as depressing as the thought that millions of people are forced to lead "Kafkaesque" lives. Reading Kafka might lead one to contemplate such things, but those depressing things were there anyway. I find the Eurovision Song Contest much more depressing than a Pettersson symphony.

Since my last post here I've listened again to the 8th and got partway through the 9th. I don't think i'm in a position to say anything about the 9th yet (except that it starts much more urgently than most of the others, which generally seem to want to emerge gradually fromrelative amorphousness), but my second experience of the 8th convinced me (among other things) that I ought to get to know it properly, in order better to appreciate its inner dramatic/sonic relations. I think though I shall go on to the end of the cycle first.

I don't think Allan Pettersson's biographical details are particularly relevant though.

I think that you've cut through to the essence here. Increpatio make a good point in his mention of the later Tchaikovsky symphonies and it is worth noting tht Tchaikovsky, despite being so close to death and despite some of the sentiments expressed in his final work, declared himself to be happy - i.e. well satisfied - with progress on the symphony that we now know as his Pathétique as he worked on it.

You would not be alone in that, but the great thing about this is that one can so easily switch off the former, whereas...

We await your ongoing Petterssonic diary with interest!

They're interesting and I doubt that they are entirely IRrelevant, but I agree that the connections between what went on in Pettersson's day-to-day life and what went on in his musical mind when honing his imaginings into symphonies (which are the backbone of his output) seem at best pretty tenuous.

Best,

Alistair

Agreed.  I agree with almost all of what you say, not just above, but in other parts. I will post one more partial reply on the off-topic thread, but leave things here to return to Pettersson.

Re: Pettersson's biographical details: I agree that the influence his physical condition had on his symphonies is minimal, but the place that his symphonies take in his life must be, I think, rather significant.  But we talk of the music here, and rightly so.