Herbert Blomstedt
Conductor Herbert Blomstedt is a member of the top rank of modern conductors, having held long-term music directorships in both Europe and the U.S. Specializing in Romantic and early 20th century repertory, he has recorded a substantial body of work and has remained active into great old age.
Blomstedt was born on July 11, 1927, in Springfield, Massachusetts, but his parents were Swedish, and they returned to their home country when Blomstedt was four. He grew up partly in Finland. His mother gave him piano lessons, and he took courses at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm while pursuing a general degree at the University of Uppsala. Drawn to conducting, he traveled to Paris for lessons with Igor Markevitch. This phase of Blomstedt's education laid the groundwork for his later versatility as a conductor as he studied contemporary music in the fertile city of Darmstadt in 1949, took pioneering classes in Baroque music with Paul Sacher at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Switzerland, and took lessons at the Juilliard School in New York with Jean Morel, and with Leonard Bernstein at the Tanglewood Festival in Massachusetts. Blomstedt's career was launched as he won the Koussevitsky Conducting Prize in 1953 and the Salzburg Conducting Competition in 1955. He made his professional debut in 1954 with the Stockholm Philharmonic and was appointed the music director of the Nörrkoping Symphony, where he remained through 1961. The first part of Blomstedt's career was marked by Scandinavian successes. He held the post of first conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic from 1962 to 1968 and was appointed music director of the Royal Danish Symphony in Copenhagen in 1967, remaining in that post until 1977. The musicians of the Staatskapelle Dresden in what was then East Germany invited him to become their music director in 1975, and his ten-year tenure there was marked by recordings and major tours through the East Bloc and beyond. Blomstedt became familiar to American audiences as the music director of the San Francisco Symphony, a position he assumed in 1985, surmounting difficulties that arose as the orchestra was split into two parts. In 1995, Blomstedt returned to Europe as the music director of the NDR Symphony in Hamburg, moving three years later to the same post with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. His long career brought him a profusion of guest conducting opportunities, and he has amassed an impressive collection of conductor laureate posts, remaining active into old age. A member of the Seventh-Day Adventist church, Blomstedt does not rehearse on Friday nights or Saturdays, but he does conduct, interpreting performances as expressions of religious devotion.
Blomstedt's recording catalog is vast, comprising well over 125 albums, including many from the LP era; many of the latter have been reissued in digital form. His repertory runs from Beethoven through the 19th century and well into the 20th, with special emphasis on the music of Carl Nielsen, Franz Berwald, and other Scandinavian composers. He has also recorded the symphonies of Bruckner at several points in his career. Blomstedt has remained active as a recording artist even after slowing his schedule of live performances. His recording of the Brahms Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 73, with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, was released in 2021 when the conductor was 93.
© James Manheim /TiVo
Similar artists
-
グリーグ 劇音楽「ペール・ギュント」
Herbert Blomstedt, Staatskapelle Dresden
Classical - Released by Warner Music Group - X5 Music Group on 16 Mar 2018
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
WEBER, C.M. von: Konzertstuck, Op. 79 / Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 2 (Rosel, Dresden Staatskapelle, Blomstedt)
Peter Rösel, Herbert Blomstedt, Staatskapelle Dresden
Classical - Released by Eterna on 10 Feb 1986
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 3
Herbert Blomstedt, San Francisco Symphony
Classical - Released by Decca Music Group Ltd. on 5 Nov 1991
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 2 & 9 (Remastered)
Herbert Blomstedt, Staatskapelle Dresden
Symphonic Music - Released by Eterna on 1 Jan 1984
24-Bit 88.2 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven : Leonore, Op. 72
Staatskapelle Dresden & Herbert Blomstedt
Full Operas - Released by Brilliant Classics on 1 Jan 1977
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven: Symphony No. 7 (Remastered)
Herbert Blomstedt, Staatskapelle Dresden
Symphonic Music - Released by Eterna on 1 Jan 1977
24-Bit 88.2 kHz - Stereo -
Nielsen: Symphony No. 5, Concertos and Wind Quintet
Classical - Released by Warner Classics on 1 Jan 2001
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Herbert Blomstedt: Gewandhausorchester Leipzig
Bernd Glemser, Herbert Blomstedt, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig
Symphonic Music - Released by Querstand on 1 Jan 2005
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Brahms: Ein deutsches Requiem
Elizabeth Norberg-Schulz, Wolfgang Holzmair, San Francisco Symphony Chorus, San Francisco Symphony, Herbert Blomstedt
Classical - Released by Decca Music Group Ltd. on 1 Jan 1994
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Hindemith: Die Harmonie der Welt; Octet
Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Herbert Blomstedt, Octuor Viennois
Classical - Released by Decca Music Group Ltd. on 1 Jan 2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Schubert: Sinfonien No. 1 & 2
Staatskapelle Dresden, Herbert Blomstedt
Symphonic Music - Released by Eterna on 1 Jan 1983
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Symphonies
Classical - Released by Warner Classics on 24 Sep 2007
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Sandström: High Mass / Lidholm: Kontakion
Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Herbert Blomstedt
Classical - Released by Deutsche Grammophon (DG) on 1 Jan 2004
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Schubert: Sinfonien No. 5 & 6
Staatskapelle Dresden, Herbert Blomstedt
Symphonic Music - Released by Eterna on 1 Jan 1982
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven: Symphony No. 4 (Remastered)
Herbert Blomstedt, Staatskapelle Dresden
Symphonic Music - Released by Eterna on 1 Jan 1980
24-Bit 88.2 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven: Symphony No. 6
Staatskapelle Dresden, Herbert Blomstedt
Classical - Released by Brilliant Classics on 1 Jan 1978
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Johannes Brahms: Symphony No. 2, Op. 73
Herbert Blomstedt, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig
Symphonic Music - Released by Querstand on 1 Jan 2005
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Schubert: Symphony No. 9
Staatskapelle Dresden, Herbert Blomstedt
Classical - Released by Brilliant Classics on 15 Feb 2021
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
REGER, M.: Violin Concerto (Scherzer, Dresden Staatskapelle, Blomstedt)
Manfred Scherzer, Herbert Blomstedt, Staatskapelle Dresden
Classical - Released by Eterna on 19 Feb 1984
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Pettersson: Violin Concerto No. 2 / 6 Songs From Barefoot Songs
Ida Haendel, Margareta Dahlstrom, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Stockholms Studensångare, Herbert Blomstedt, Eskil Hemberg
Classical - Released by Caprice on 1 Jan 1980
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven: Symphony No. 9
Staatskapelle Dresden, Herbert Blomstedt
Classical - Released by Brilliant Classics on 14 Sep 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo