The 24 Barefoot Songs for voice and piano are Pettersson’s settings of his own poems, and as such form a singularly profound portrait of the composer. Their importance can be measured by the fact that Pettersson throughout his life returned to themes from the collection, reusing them in his large-scale works. It was Doráti who suggested the orchestration of eight of the songs, a task with which he was entrusted by the composer. The two concertos for strings were composed in 1950 and 1956 respectively and signify the very individual road that Pettersson would take as a composer of orchestral works.