At the time of his death on June 20, 1980, Pettersson was working on what would have been his Symphony No. 17. The unfinished fragmentary work will (most likely) remain unpublished and unperformed. Peter Ruzicka states that he made references to the unfinished score in his "Pettersson Requiem", "…das Gesegnete, das Verfluchte" a reference to Pettersson's statement that "The music forming my work is my own life, its blessings, its curses (das Gesegnete, das Verfluchte): in order to rediscover the song once sung by the soul." but it is unclear to me how far Pettersson may have gotten. I doubt that any "performing version" (a la Deryck Cooke's Mahler #10) of the Seventeenth will ever appear.

Copyright © Mark Shanks, 1996