Allan Pettersson: Symphony No. 8 Jürgen Lange∗† May 10, 2017 Dreieich, Germany Abstract Most of the material of Pettersson’s 8th Symphony is derived from Mozart’s Symphony No. 41 »Jupiter« and Nielsen’s Symphony No. 5. The philosophy of Pettersson’s music is determined by Nielsen’s vegetatio and organicism. First part of 8th Symphony describes music history from origin to decline. A cantus firmus extended to a long cantus is followed by a concatenation of different polyphonic and homophonic compositional techniques sorted chronological. Second part is a revolutionary construction of a polyphonic movement in sonata form. The symphony is the composers manifesto.
Part I
Motives 8th Symphony 1
Motive I - Classical Theme
Pettersson 8th Symphony (1969) Motive I in Figure 11 is the cohesive and dominating theme of the whole two-part-symphony. It is occurring in the second half of Part I and Part II of the opus.
Bar (I/255), II/394
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Figure 1: Motive I Pettersson 8th Symphony ∗ Initial
release of this manuscript: August 2, 2012. BY-SA 4.0 1 All snippets of 8th Symphony from Score NMS 10642 Copyright © 1984 by AB Nordiska Musikförlaget / Edition Wilhelm Hanson, Stockholm. † CC
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