Allan Pettersson, one of Sweden's greatest symphonic composers, wrote seventeen symphonies but buried the first. He never published it, and simply called the next one Symphony No. 2, leaving the original to disappear into silence for decades. But why?

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This documentary follows conductor Christian Lindberg's work to bring that hidden symphony to life for the first time, piecing together Pettersson's extensive but incomplete sketches, missing pages and all. Along the way, the film traces the composer's remarkable life: growing up in poverty around Nytorget on Södermalm, beating every odd to become a violist in what is now the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and pursuing his true calling as a composer through decades of study until he became one of Sweden's greatest composers.

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Someone in the film says that Pettersson's music contains everything, and it does. Deeply original and at times overwhelming, it carries something unmistakably Swedish within it, rooted in the streets and struggles of Stockholm in a way you feel in your bones when you listen. The film was distributed on DVD and has aired multiple times on both Axess TV and SVT.