CPO's series of Pettersson symphonies has now arrived at the biggest of the lot, the Ninth (1969-70). In this performance, running only three minutes longer than the Thirteenth (1976, 3/94), much of it is more genuinely fast-paced than is usual for this composer. No. 9 was the climactic composition of Pettersson's 'middle phase', a huge work of synthesis drawing together the experiences communicated so compellingly in Nos. 5-8 (written over the previous decade) and reworked on an even broader canvas. It feels like a piece that Pettersson needed to write, to get out of his system, before moving on to the different concerns of Nos. 10, 11 et al. , and its completion coincided with the start of protracted hospitalization for the rheumatoid arthritis that crippled and eventually killed him. (No. 5 – 2/91 – had been the last work he was able to write out in his normal, legible hand. )
If the music lacks the direct melodic appeal of the better-known Seventh (1968; 4/94 and 10/94), No. 9 is the more gripping score. All the familiar Pettersson fingerprints that people either love or loathe are here: the insistent stridency of tone, long, anguished lines and near-unrelenting tension, though there are points of repose where less intense writing comes to the surface, at times reminiscent of Shostakovich. The Deutsches Symphony Orchestra play with commitment, but cannot disguise their lack of familiarity with the style. BIS are also ploughing the Pettersson furrow, most recently with Leif Segerstam; his version will need to be special to surpass this one. R1 '9509042'