Andreas K. W. Meyer’s
notes provide a timeline for the life of Allan Petterson (1911–1980),
“orchestra violinist, composer, oddball.” In any event, he cast his
Second Violin Concerto in one, almost hour-long, movement (the recording
has been divided into 10 tracks for those who might want to study
specific sections). Its elfin opening, with swirling tonal parts in the
upper registers surrounding a tempo
at figure 41 in the score (the designation of the fourth track) and even more strikingly through most of the
a tempo
of the seventh and at the beginning of the
cantando, tempo IV
of the eighth and ninth tracks—and, throughout, woodwind
sonorities highlight many passages. Meyer relates that Ida Haendel, the
dedicatee, gave the work its premiere on January 25, 1980 (it had been
composed between 1977 and 1979).
It might not strike most listeners that Pettersson based the Concerto on a poem,
God Goes over the Meadows
, and his own musical setting of it. The text continues (in Susan
Marie Praeder’s translation), “but only between thistles,” and this line
may offer some insight into the work’s thickets of thorns and brambles.
Meyer points out that his song’s folk-like style provided the “material
point of departure.” So the intermittent tonality and passages of
simpler, less entangled, lyricism may hearken to this
fons et origo
. Whatever lies at the center of this massive Concerto, however,
its accessibility to audiences may depend less upon it than upon the
composer’s ear for striking sonorities, for dramatic contrasts, and for
soaring, effective writing for the solo instrument. Since Pettersson
wrote his First Violin Concerto, according to the notes, in 1949, for
Violin and String Quartet, this one represents a quantum leap into
complex sonorities while remaining within the genre of the Violin
Concerto. Adventurous listeners should find the work, the performance by
both soloist and orchestra, and the wide-ranging and stark recorded
sound especially rewarding. Strongly recommended to them. (Robert Maxham)
