Herbert Blomstedt, the Swedish conductor whose career spanned more than half a century and eight orchestras in Europe and the United States, has died at the age of 99, according to Swedish media. Dagens Nyheter published a remembrance by its critic Camilla Lundberg, who described him as the most internationally renowned Swedish musician ever and as a conductor both hugely in demand and genuinely loved.
According to Lundberg, Blomstedt led eight orchestras as chief conductor before becoming a freelancer at 78. In his ninetieth year he was booked for ninety concerts in more than forty cities around the world, she writes.
Why it matters
Few careers in classical music have combined reach, longevity and affection in the way Blomstedt's did. Lundberg notes that he remained a guest with the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics, and that his old Swedish orchestras in Stockholm and Gothenburg also had to wait their turn in his schedule. Wherever he went, she writes, he brought his own repertoire: the great classical symphonies, with an increasing Swedish presence in the form of Berwald and Stenhammar.
From Gothenburg newspaper boy to the world's podiums
Blomstedt was the son of an itinerant free-church pastor and a trained pianist. After spells in Minneapolis and Helsinki, the family settled in Gothenburg, where the young Herbert became a regular at the Gothenburg Symphony's concerts, according to Dagens Nyheter. His violin teacher played in the orchestra, and the boy paid for lessons and tickets by selling newspapers.
The path to the podium was not straightforward. Before a successful debut with the Stockholm Philharmonic in 1954, Lundberg reports, he completed a cantor's degree at the Music Academy and a bachelor's degree at Uppsala University, and took conducting courses with, among others, Leonard Bernstein in the United States.
A doctrinal obstacle shaped his early career. Blomstedt belonged to the Seventh-day Adventist Church, which holds Saturday as the day of rest, and for him neither rehearsals nor concerts were possible on the Sabbath. That ruled out his first offer of a chief conductorship, Lundberg writes. With the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra it worked, and in time Saturday concerts became possible too.
After Norrköping, where he started a family that would grow to include four daughters, came chief posts in Oslo and Copenhagen. The six symphonies of Carl Nielsen that he learned there would remain central to his repertoire, according to the remembrance. At home in Sweden, Lundberg notes, he was long seen as a strict kapellmeister with a austere modernist repertoire — the man who appeared on black-and-white television as "Uncle Baton" and introduced young audiences to unfamiliar music by György Ligeti. Skilled, knowledgeable and friendly, yes, she writes — but perhaps a little dry, and so ascetic: a vegetarian who drank nothing stronger than herbal tea.
Dresden, San Francisco and a break with Sweden
In 1977 Blomstedt became chief conductor of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra while holding the same position at the historic Dresden Staatskapelle. Despite life in what was then East Germany — "at its best, it was grey and dull," as Lundberg quotes him — he preferred the East German orchestra, where he found a musical dedication he missed at home. There he recorded his first complete cycle of Beethoven's symphonies.
He eventually left Sweden after a dispute with the tax authority. His Dresden salary was paid in East German marks, worthless outside the GDR, but the tax office demanded it be assessed as West German currency — at 150 percent, according to Dagens Nyheter. The situation was untenable, and it did not improve when new leadership at the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra curtailed his artistic authority. From then on, Lundberg writes, Lucerne in Switzerland was his home.
In 1986 San Francisco became his new workplace and a radical change of environment. The contrast with Dresden could hardly have been greater, and Blomstedt found it difficult to adjust to the informal culture of the city, though he appreciated its abundance of vegetables, according to the remembrance. There he championed a Nordic-flavoured repertoire — Sibelius, Grieg, Berwald — as well as living composers such as Ingvar Lidholm. When he left the post ten years later, the San Francisco Symphony had developed into one of America's foremost orchestras, Lundberg writes.
After some years as chief conductor in Hamburg, Blomstedt took his final post in Leipzig in 1998. The city's famous Gewandhaus Orchestra remained his favourite among the international top orchestras he regularly guest-conducted until his ninety-eighth year, according to Dagens Nyheter.
A scholar's library and a family of players
What made Blomstedt unique, in Lundberg's assessment, was the depth of his learning and his insight into the core repertoire of Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky and Bruckner — symphonies he never stopped studying. That diligence produced a remarkable library with plenty of rarities; most of it, roughly half a kilometre of shelving, he donated to the University of Gothenburg.
Blomstedt knew his worth and was paid accordingly, Lundberg writes. With his ascetic way of life, a good deal was left over — a tenth to the Seventh-day Adventists, perhaps also an organ for one of their churches. He acquired valuable string instruments for use in the former East German orchestras.
She also singles out the mutual affection between the veteran maestro and his orchestras. After many years abroad as a widower, he regarded them as his family and made a point of learning members' names. After his Nobel concert in Stockholm he thanked every member of the Philharmonic and shook each of them by the hand, according to the remembrance. At 97 he returned home to Gothenburg, where he grew up, and recorded his well-received Summer Programme for Swedish Radio in 2024 amid the moving boxes.
Blomstedt kept his vigour and continued to take concert halls around the world, always meticulously prepared, always without a baton and almost always without a score — that is, from memory. But not, as Lundberg puts it, without a fox behind his ear.
What happens next: tributes and further remembrances are expected from the orchestras and institutions he led and guest-conducted, including the Gewandhaus Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra.
