It was concert time last Thursday, the 14th of January.

Where? Louis de Geer Concert Hall in Norrköping
What? Pettersson’s 1st Symphony
When? 19.00

What was special?

Allan Pettersson was a Swedish composer who also lived in Paris during his career. He started a lot of pieces, but sometimes did not finish them. So it was with his 1st symphony. However, the conductor of this night’s performance, Christian Lindberg made a playable (and listenable!) version of it.

So on Thursday it was première for Pettersson’s 1st Symphony! Conducted by it Christian Lindberg.

I did not expect Pettersson to be my cup of tea quite frankly, but was willing to endure it, no matter what, because it was  followed by Haydn’s Trumpet Concert in E-Dur and Dvorak’s 9th Symphony in e-moll op 95. Both is to my mind great stuff if performed nicely.

Back to Pettersson. The music itself was as expected not really my thing, but oh my – did I ever watch such an energetic and enthusiastic conductor before? No. Especially none that appeared in a colourful shirt instead of smoking and some cowboy-boots like shoes on stage. Classical concert, remember.

He, though, looked more like someone jumping in from a jazz session. Christian Lindberg is by the way known as one of the most skilled trombone players of our time. Having him moving energetically around on the stage while conducting, his figure also reminded of a marathon runner in smart clothes. So I’d even like to call him the first conductor with some kind of sex appeal – look at his website (linked above) or check YouTube and you’ll see what I mean.

Though, if you get a chance to see him live, grab some tickets. It is worth it.

He also conducted Haydn and Dvorak, in the same manner but changed to  another shirt (now red instead of green) – and he was joined by the trumpet soloist Tine Thing Helseth, a Norwegian lady aged 23 who really showed off her superb skills when performing the Haydn trumpet concert.

I was really glad to have been to that for all these aspects very special concert. The loved one dragged me along, and I am still grateful for a fantastic night out. The concert hall was half empty, but I think people really missed out. If there would be any concert that gets young people interested in classical music, than it would have been this one. Simply because it was far from boring and proved all stereotypes of classical music that one gets exposed to during music lessons at school wrong.