Allan Pettersson: Symphony No. 10

Pettersson’s 10th Symphony (duration 25’) contains very reduced material. Signals or
vectors are used to condense, obeying strict mathematical and technical principles. Increasing
the flow velocity in the middle section causes a transition to turbulence and chaos. The
turning point in the last part represents a dream state, before the final Coda repeats the
material extremely compacted. The symphony has autobiographical elements and describes
Pettersson’s traumatic nine-month hospital stay. The sterile, mechanized and ruthless
world, characterized by devices, threatens the man to fail.