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richard barrett
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« Reply #60 on: 15:11:08, 14-09-2007 » |
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Something I did notice in the 9th, by the way, was what seem to be sporadic occurrences of the DSCH motive (I haven't checked whether they're transposed or not, having only imperfect pitch). It could just be that exposure to Shostakovich's work sensitises one to that motive and one hears it where it isn't supposed particularly to be.
Biographical details are always interesting of course, if only on a "gossip" level (which, according to much current theorising on the origin of language, is a very deeply ingrained one). Some might say that Allan Pettersson was more inclined to empathise with human suffering because he endured so much of it himself; but I would imagine that suffering from chronic pain and incapacitation, as well as coming from a deprived and violent family background, would be just as likely to have the opposite effect on one's attitude towards the rest of the human race, so it doesn't really explain anything about the music. It's probably more relevant to an understanding of the whys and wherefores of AP's music to know that, until his enforced retirement, he was a professional orchestral violist, which might well affect the way he perceived orchestral sound, that is to say from within the orchestra rather than from the audience or the podium, which in turn could be a factor behind his "polyphonic" approach to orchestral sound generally in terms of a number of equal layers rather than foreground and background.
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ahinton
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« Reply #61 on: 15:23:42, 14-09-2007 » |
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Something I did notice in the 9th, by the way, was what seem to be sporadic occurrences of the DSCH motive (I haven't checked whether they're transposed or not, having only imperfect pitch). It could just be that exposure to Shostakovich's work sensitises one to that motive and one hears it where it isn't supposed particularly to be.
Biographical details are always interesting of course, if only on a "gossip" level (which, according to much current theorising on the origin of language, is a very deeply ingrained one). Some might say that Allan Pettersson was more inclined to empathise with human suffering because he endured so much of it himself; but I would imagine that suffering from chronic pain and incapacitation, as well as coming from a deprived and violent family background, would be just as likely to have the opposite effect on one's attitude towards the rest of the human race, so it doesn't really explain anything about the music. It's probably more relevant to an understanding of the whys and wherefores of AP's music to know that, until his enforced retirement, he was a professional orchestral violist, which might well affect the way he perceived orchestral sound, that is to say from within the orchestra rather than from the audience or the podium, which in turn could be a factor behind his "polyphonic" approach to orchestral sound generally in terms of a number of equal layers rather than foreground and background.
Very well said, sir! As to the DSCH motif, there is perhaps a larger consideration here; it comprises alternate tones and semitones and so is an essential part of an octatonic scale, a device that has found its way into all manner of composer's languages - composers as distinct from one another as David Matthews and Olivier Messiaen (just to pick two entirely at random). I do not know if Allan Pettersson played in performances of Shostakovich symphonies (he may well have done, I suppose), but he will undoubtedly have responded to what he heard from his slightly older Russian contemporary. The DSCH motif occurs in the opening line of Beethoven's Les Adieux sonata and in Reger's Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Bach (again, just to cite at random two examples from piano repertoire). Bst, Alistair |
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richard barrett
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« Reply #62 on: 16:05:01, 14-09-2007 » |
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octatonic scale Round my way we call that mode 2 of limited transposition. Of course it could be coincidental, although I've never detected a DSCH moment in Messiaen, and someone like AP writing a symphony in 1970 would hardly have been unaware of the implications of that particular intervallic constellation. The 9th (which I've just been listening to) really DOES go for the full-blown habanera rhythm in one place, and seems a good deal less contemplative than its predecessors, going "on the offensive" from the very start, and staying on it for most of its duration (it must be the longest symphonic movement in existence). I don't feel myself warming to it like I did with the 6th and 8th. As for the plagal cadence at the end, it sounds like one of those things that might have private significance for the composer but is completely inscrutable to anyone else. |
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« Last Edit: 16:07:36, 14-09-2007 by richard barrett »
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ahinton
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« Reply #63 on: 16:15:46, 14-09-2007 » |
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octatonic scale Round my way we call that mode 2 of limited transposition. Of course it could be coincidental, although I've never detected a DSCH moment in Messiaen, and someone like AP writing a symphony in 1970 would hardly have been unaware of the implications of that particular intervallic constellation. The 9th (which I've just been listening to) really DOES go for the full-blown habanera rhythm in one place, and seems a good deal less contemplative than its predecessors, going "on the offensive" from the very start, and staying on it for most of its duration (it must be the longest symphonic movement in existence). I don't feel myself warming to it like I did with the 6th and 8th. As for the plagal cadence at the end, it sounds like one of those things that might have private significance for the composer but is completely inscrutable to anyone else. It's not inscrutable to me; astonishing, unanticipated and all manner of other things, perhaps, after all that has gone before, but inscrutable, no. My LP deck has packed up so I can't play my 2-LP set of the symphony now, but I'm wondering what its duration is on your CD and whether the liner notes accompanying it include an indication of any cuts having been made, as the performance on my LPs totals 85'20". Best, Alistair |
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richard barrett
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« Reply #64 on: 16:31:03, 14-09-2007 » |
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Inscrutable:
1. incapable of being investigated, analyzed, or scrutinized; impenetrable.
2. not easily understood; mysterious; unfathomable: an inscrutable smile.
3. incapable of being seen through physically; physically impenetrable: the inscrutable depths of the ocean. It certainly is all that to me. How would you say it could be analysed or understood? The CD version is 69'54" in duration and no cuts are mentioned: indeed the liner notes state that AP's own estimate of the work's duration was 65-70 minutes and that this is borne out according to the metronome markings in the score. |
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ahinton
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« Reply #65 on: 16:59:41, 14-09-2007 » |
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Inscrutable:
1. incapable of being investigated, analyzed, or scrutinized; impenetrable.
2. not easily understood; mysterious; unfathomable: an inscrutable smile.
3. incapable of being seen through physically; physically impenetrable: the inscrutable depths of the ocean. It certainly is all that to me. How would you say it could be analysed or understood? To me (and I stress that this is nothing more than a personal reaction), I find the long unison string passge (I WISH I could go and hear it again right now!) that precedes this cadence finally provides a hint at respite, albeit hard-won and the cadence itself seems to strike me as a kind of exhausted relief; that's hardly an analysis of any kind, I realise, but it is at least one listener's understanding of it... The CD version is 69'54" in duration and no cuts are mentioned: indeed the liner notes state that AP's own estimate of the work's duration was 65-70 minutes and that this is borne out according to the metronome markings in the score.
This is indeed interesting. I'll have to try to find out more about that original recording/performance, since the difference in duration is pretty massive; I don't know, for example, what record there is of Pettersson's own reactions to it. Best, Alistair |
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« Last Edit: 21:49:52, 14-09-2007 by ahinton »
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richard barrett
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« Reply #66 on: 20:20:41, 14-09-2007 » |
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The unison string passage (with cymbals) leading up to the end of the 9th is indeed very impressive. To me the final cadence has a feeling of not quite belonging in the same world as the rest of the symphony, as if being heard from outside, at some distance in time and/or space, but I'll have to listen again before my thoughts about it make any more sense than that.
This afternoon I also listened to the 10th and the 11th, though this isn't as impressive as it might sound since both together are considerably shorter than the 9th. The 10th comes across as a single half-hour-long gesture of defiance, angular and motoric almost throughout, in some ways like a distillation of the much more structurally diffuse 9th (with even more snare drum action), and stops abruptly rather than coming to any kind of end. The 11th, about equal in size, has more light and shade but its ending is equally inconclusive. These two pieces could almost be a two-movement work. I think I prefer the 11th on account of its less hectoring tone of voice, but I think they'll have to be listened to separately next time because I can already feel my memory blurring them together.
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richard barrett
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« Reply #67 on: 21:15:54, 15-09-2007 » |
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So today I moved on to the 12th, which is a 53-minute choral symphony based on texts by Pablo Neruda, as in a way is Berio's Coro which also dates from the mid-70s. While Berio fragments both the orchestra and the chorus into a multitude of soloists, in Pettersson's piece there are no solos at all (though there's an almost concertante passage for solo violin), no doubt so as to emphasise the way that Neruda, in speaking of specific events and people from the violent contemporary history of his country, speaks for oppressed and silenced voices everywhere and at all times. Indeed Berio reserves the Neruda texts for the massive tutti blocks which permeate Coro, but while in that work Neruda's texts are often submerged in dense textures, Pettersson seems intent that they should be heard as clearly as possible most of the time, and to this end he employs a lean and declamatory choral style which is often reminiscent of Stravinsky, although the orchestral texture in which it's embedded sounds very different. I'm rather impressed by the way that the chorus is interwoven with the orchestra so that it almost functions as an extra orchestral "section" (or several), since the orchestration is by no means thinned-out or accompanimental. A fine balance is also sustained between symphonic form and the structural demands of the extensive text. I would imagine that it could be an extremely powerful work in live performance.
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ahinton
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« Reply #68 on: 21:46:27, 15-09-2007 » |
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So today I moved on to the 12th, which is a 53-minute choral symphony based on texts by Pablo Neruda, as in a way is Berio's Coro which also dates from the mid-70s. While Berio fragments both the orchestra and the chorus into a multitude of soloists, in Pettersson's piece there are no solos at all (though there's an almost concertante passage for solo violin), no doubt so as to emphasise the way that Neruda, in speaking of specific events and people from the violent contemporary history of his country, speaks for oppressed and silenced voices everywhere and at all times. Indeed Berio reserves the Neruda texts for the massive tutti blocks which permeate Coro, but while in that work Neruda's texts are often submerged in dense textures, Pettersson seems intent that they should be heard as clearly as possible most of the time, and to this end he employs a lean and declamatory choral style which is often reminiscent of Stravinsky, although the orchestral texture in which it's embedded sounds very different. I'm rather impressed by the way that the chorus is interwoven with the orchestra so that it almost functions as an extra orchestral "section" (or several), since the orchestration is by no means thinned-out or accompanimental. A fine balance is also sustained between symphonic form and the structural demands of the extensive text. I would imagine that it could be an extremely powerful work in live performance.
At this rate, Richard, you are on the road to becoming not so much a leek as an honorary Swede; do please keep these impressions coming! I rather thank that those in Sweden interested in the music of Allan Pettersson would be most intrigued to read your thoughts on these works. I've only ever heard 12 once and was struck at times by a manner of expression that might seem almost to have pulled something from Britten's War Requiem (albeit at an even greater distance from the Stravinsky that you mention). The biggest problem is that these works all need to be heard in the way in which they were written - i.e. played live by orchestras in concert halls. I look forward to more of what you have to say about this cycle of symphonies. I have no. 13 here and have listened to that several times, but I don't at all know those that follow it. Best, Alistair |
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increpatio
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« Reply #69 on: 13:34:54, 17-09-2007 » |
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So today I moved on to the 12th, which is a 53-minute choral symphony based on texts by Pablo Neruda, as in a way is Berio's Coro which also dates from the mid-70s. While Berio fragments both the orchestra and the chorus into a multitude of soloists, in Pettersson's piece there are no solos at all (though there's an almost concertante passage for solo violin), no doubt so as to emphasise the way that Neruda, in speaking of specific events and people from the violent contemporary history of his country, speaks for oppressed and silenced voices everywhere and at all times. Indeed Berio reserves the Neruda texts for the massive tutti blocks which permeate Coro, but while in that work Neruda's texts are often submerged in dense textures, Pettersson seems intent that they should be heard as clearly as possible most of the time, and to this end he employs a lean and declamatory choral style which is often reminiscent of Stravinsky, although the orchestral texture in which it's embedded sounds very different. I'm rather impressed by the way that the chorus is interwoven with the orchestra so that it almost functions as an extra orchestral "section" (or several), since the orchestration is by no means thinned-out or accompanimental. A fine balance is also sustained between symphonic form and the structural demands of the extensive text. I would imagine that it could be an extremely powerful work in live performance.
Having put it on in the background, I can say I rather enjoyed the seventh part; "fiendema" - it has a type of triplity momentum I don't in my head associate with pettersson. |
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increpatio
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« Reply #70 on: 21:26:59, 08-10-2007 » |
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Oh: that Hindemith bit that reminded me of Pettersson was the fugato at the start of the third part of Kammermusik #7.
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richard barrett
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« Reply #71 on: 16:23:40, 14-10-2007 » |
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I don't know that I can say that much about symphonies 14 and 15. Each of them is long and complex, and gives the impression that further acquaintance would be enlightening in terms of discovering further depths and connections within them, but without really "inviting" such further investigation. As I write that I feel somewhat ashamed at seeming to dismiss such massive symphonic expressions of a committed and uncompromising composer's inmost convictions in a single superficial sentence. I don't think I've finished with this music yet anyway.
The 16th and final symphony is quite different. It features a solo part for alto saxophone (brilliantly played by John Edward Kelly on the recording) which, while playing almost throughout, has nothing in the way of virtuosic or what might normally be thought of as "concertante" playing to do. What it does is to provide a constant recognisable thread (or, viewed from another angle, a vantage point) within the evolving polyphony which makes the work to my ears much more attractive and involving than the three preceding symphonies.
So that's it for now. Critical opinion, what little there is of it, would seem to agree that the key works are nos. 6-9, and I find myself reaching the same conclusion (though no.7 sometimes gets a bit too sickly for my liking), though I think I would add nos. 12 and 16 to the list of things that interested parties ought to try out. One thing I can definitely say in Pettersson's favour (though I suppose not everyone would find this an attractive quality) is that when listening to his music one's thoughts are very rarely impinged upon by anyone else's music. While it lasts it's the only music there is; you either take it on its own terms or not at all. Despite spending most of his life writing tonal symphonies, Pettersson at his best does expand one's notion (well, mine, anyway) of what music is and could be.
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lovedaydewfall
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« Reply #72 on: 16:00:52, 24-10-2007 » |
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I do agree with a lot of what has been said in praise of AP. The "Amen" at the end of No. 9 is a complete mystery to me. No. 6 I think is still probably the best, and possibly the most accessible for newcomers (well, no. 7 is more accessible, but much less good a work). I think no. 10 deserves a higher rating than was accorded to it and also the choral 12th is a superb work. I agree most of all with the sentiment that when listening to AP it is the only music, and nothing else exists. Fortunately one does not listen only to AP, so that other music then does exist. No-one mentioned the Violin Concerto No. 2, which is like another symphony despite the solo which plays throughout. And it exists in two versions! I am looking forward to receipt of a CD of the Viola Concerto which I have never heard before.
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