Allan Pettersson wrote his Symphony No. 9 in 1970.
The symphony is his last composition preceding a nine-month stay in hospital (starting September 1970);[1] it is also his longest symphony.[2] There is one movement, though it divides into a number of smaller sections that follow each other with at most nominal pause but usually none.[3] The notes to the cpo recording identify 17 such sections, partially for analysis.[4]
Much though not all of the material in the symphony is based on the ascending scale motif heard at the very beginning, played by bassoons, violas and cellos.[3] The concluding bars of the symphony[5] are described by Peter Ruzicka as a Canto whose main theme goes from violins and cellos to violas in unison, and which ends in a slow cadence into F major.
Pettersson dedicated the symphony to Sergiu Comissiona and the Gothenburg Symphony, who premiered it on 18 February 1971 [3][6] and had commissioned it for the 350th Anniversary of the Founding of the City of Gothenburg.[3]
The miniature score was published in 1989 by Nordiska Musikforlaget of Stockholm[7] and runs to 385 pages.