Gustav Allan Pettersson was born September 19, 1911, in the Västra Ryd parish of the Uppland province of Sweden; he was the youngest of four children.

When he was twelve, Pettersson saved enough money (earned by selling postcards and Christmas cards) to buy a violin.

This was perceived by the father as an act of defiance, and Pettersson was beaten and told in no uncertain terms that selfish acts such as that would alienate him from his working class family.

When he reached the age of 14, and after finishing his elementary schooling, Pettersson devoted himself to full-time practice on the violin.

He was largely self-taught on the instrument, much to the distress of the neighbors and disgust of his father.

However, he developed sufficient skill on the instrument to enter the Stockholm Royal Conservatory of Music at age 19 (in 1930), and he studied violin, viola, harmony, and counterpoint there for the next nine years.

His working class origins isolated him from the wealthier students, but his studies cut him off from his family and neighborhood.

In 1939, he won the Jenny Lind prize, and continued his viola studies in Paris with Maurice Vieux.

He became a concert violist with what is today the Stockholm Philharmonic from 1939 until 1950, when he went on what became permanent leave.

His first works of major importance were the 24 Barefoot Songs, written for voice and piano to his own texts and published in 1943-45.

The name comes from one of the songs, which is about a young girl who walks barefoot through thorns and thistles; Pettersson married his wife Gudrun in 1943.

He composed his First Symphony in 1951, but at the time of writing this, it remains unpublished.

In 1953, the first symptoms of the crippling arthritis that would eventually lead to his complete disablement appeared, and Pettersson was unable to attend the 1953 International Festival in Cologne.

In 1970, he developed serious lesions to his kidneys and was confined to a hospital for nine months, during which time he sketched out the drafts of his Symphonies No.10 and 11.

In 1973, he received a commission from the University of Uppsala and its music director, Carl Rune Larsson, for the University's 500th anniversary for what was to become his Symphony No.12, "The Dead on the Square", with the text being the poem cycle "Los Muertos de la Plaza" by Pablo Neruda.

The same year (1974), Pettersson also composed a cantata, "Vox Humana", also on poems by Neruda.

At this time, Pettersson was living in virtual isolation with his wife on the fourth floor of an old apartment building.

His situation improved considerably when in December of 1975 he was awarded 10,000 Swedish crowns of the Kurt Atterburg Stipend of the Swedish Copyright Society.

In March of 1976, he was awarded another 10,000 crowns from the Carl Albert Fund, and in May, 25,000 crowns from the Bergen Festival for his Symphony No.13.

Pettersson was promised state living quarters in 1976, and in fact the house to which he and his wife Gudrun moved (at Bastugatan 30 in Stockholm) had been the residence of an earlier renowned composer and conductor, Ture Rangström.

The new quarters were not only on the ground floor, they also contained a garden, which Pettersson enjoyed immensely.

1978 proved to be a very productive year, in which he finished both the Fourteenth and Fifteenth symphonies and the Violin Concerto No.2.

Unfortunately, his health continued to deteriorate, and he was diagnosed with cancer; in 1979, Pettersson completed work on his Sixteenth Symphony, highly unusual in it's prominent use of a solo saxophone, and the Concerto for Viola and Orchestra.; Pettersson died on June 20.