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It may have been a bit late, but the first time I experienced a true frenzy around Herbert Blomstedt in Sweden was 25 years ago, after a series of acclaimed concerts in Stockholm and Gothenburg. Not because he has accomplished something spectacularly new and unique, but because he, with his clear gaze and unwavering sense of form and structure, has uncovered the mystery of creative wonder. The most intimate part of all good music. And in such happy cases, a Gustav Mahler symphony can appear with the same clarifying transparency as one by Joseph Haydn. Ten years later, Blomstedt retired at the age of 78 when he left the direction of the traditional Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig. And he sees the time after this so far as his best years as a director.
We have understood that music keeps you alive, even now during the current pandemic. In an interview filmed this summer, he recounted, for example, how he spent his time studying new works. And about his grandiose plans to record all the Schubert and Brahms symphonies with the Gewandhaus Orchestra. Something that may be as good as it sounds, judging from the recently released recording of Brahms etta (Pentatone / Naxos). It is a wonderfully youthful and lively performance, which has already been praised in the Swedish and international media. Furthermore, “Rarely have we needed this light more desperately than today, when the entire world is in danger of losing its soul. Because when the soul is lost, we are really lost. “
Herbert Blomstedt and the soloist Johan Dalene.
Photo: Arne Hyckenberg
Before his concert in Berwaldhallen On Friday, Blomstedt was interviewed on DN by Maria Schottenius and assured that he feels in very good shape: “I never get tired. I can never get enough. The first sound that surprises you when you’re in front of a good orchestra, like the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, is lovely. “
This fearless vigilance before the task shone directly in the first work of the concerto, the Violin Concerto No. 5 in A major by WA Mozart, with Johan Dalene as soloist, 73 years younger than Blomstedt! Now, one should not give so much importance to the age of the musicians, but here it was impossible to avoid how their interaction took on color from this. In DN, Blomstedt also commented how rare it is for him to work with such a young soloist, a “boy”, who now plays with very few soloists, who are mostly “old acquaintances”.
But who was more youthful, Johan or Herbert, in this wonderfully youthful music (Mozart was only 19 when he wrote it) couldn’t be said either. That this violin concerto belonged to what Astrid Lindgren preferred to hear felt at least unusually correct, she had taken both of them in her arms!
After the fun fun time with Mozart it was time for Franz Schubert and his Ninth Symphony. The one of “celestial length”, according to Robert Schumann, who together with Felix Mendelssohn was behind him, was premiered posthumously in Leipzig in 1839. And it was as if the Symphony Radio caught fire on this journey into the unknown and unpredictable, where the various skulls of total abandonment and song of the desire recovered by life. And who dared to do so thanks to a maestro Blomstedt at the helm as a confident guide who during all the sudden changes of track of the symphony and the risky rehearsals transmitted an indomitable: “We will go through this together!”
Yes, this was a musician with the greatest possible seriousness and therefore also with full relevance for the time we live now.
Read more:
Director Herbert Blomstedt: A true musician does not lose love
