Barefoot Songs
Barefoot Songs () is a large song cycle for voice and piano by Allan Pettersson. Background The 24 songs in Swedish were composed between 1943 and 1945. At this time, Pettersson was violist at the Stockholm Concert Society. The text of the songs was written by Pettersson himself and is partly autobiographical. The main topic of the song cycle is his youth in poverty. The diatonic songs were kept simple, but the text is not easy to understand and uses a highly poetic and cryptic language. Pettersson wrote over 100 poems, but only 24 were set to music. The Swedish Broadcasting Corporation and his publisher Nordiska Musikförlaget initially refused to publish the songs. The cycle was first published in 1976. Musicologist Andreas Krause has posited that the name Barefoot Songs is a reminiscence and tribute to Schubert's Winterreise. "Barefoot on the ice" is a quotation from the 24th and last song . Some songs are reminiscent of ballads or romances, folk songs or hymns and Schubert's Winterreise. Synopsis (Song of Lament) (Wise Men and Clenched Hands) (Mother is poor) (Love errs) (The Star and the Bars) (Something got lost) (Flower, Tell Me) (Winter Song) (The little one must wait) (The