Life did not deal kindly with Gustav Allan Pettersson (1911-80), as Andreas Meyer's biographical note accompanying this new disc makes plain; from a childhood marked by physical abuse to the rheumatoid arthritis that debilitated, crippled and finally killed him over more than three-and-a-half decades. It is not to be wondered at that his intense and personal music should bear such a 'confessional', even autobiographical, stamp; what is astonishing is that he continued to compose at all in the face of internal pain and external hostility.
Number 13, composed in 1976, is the longest of all of Pettersson's completed symphonies bar one and is entirely representative of his late music, born out of and giving voice to its creator's torment and frustration at his physical and artistic imprisonment. But the symphony is not an uncontrolled or hysterical 67-minute rant: it is full of Pettersson's soaring melodies and grippingly searing polyphony and the final affirmatory close is a triumph of the indomitability of the human spirit, as well as of Pettersson's sheer force of will.
The BBC Scottish orchestra give a tremendous, full-blooded account of what is, for most of us, unfamiliar terrain, Alun Francis holding the whole edifice together impeccably despite the work's teeming invention (no mean feat). CPO's recording, produced by Martin Dalby, is faithful although it might have benefited from a little more depth. Uncomfortable, disturbing music as this is, if listened to with sympathy—and perseverance—it is ultimately most rewarding.'