Saturday, February 15, 2025
8:00 PM
Herbert Blomstedt, one of the masters of the art of conducting for over seven decades, returns to lead the BSO in Franz Schubert's light-hearted, cheerful Symphony No. 6, as well as the First Symphony by Johannes Brahms.
Herbert Blomstedt, conductor
Franz SCHUBERT Symphony No. 6
Johannes BRAHMS Symphony No. 1
This broadcast is no longer available on demand.
To hear Herbert Blomstedt in a conversation with GBH's Arun Rath, use the player above, and read the transcript below.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT:
Arun Rath This is GBH is All Things Considered. I'm Arun Rath. This shimmering, gorgeous music is Brahms's First Symphony, conducted by one of Brahms's most profound advocates. Herbert Blomstedt. Blomstedt is known as a Swedish musician, but we like to claim the maestro since he was born here in Springfield, Massachusetts, though his Swedish parents, both musicians, brought him home to their native country when Herbert was two years old. Herbert Blomstedt is now 97 years old and going by his concert and recording output, he has not slowed down a bit. You can catch this brilliant artist conducting this beautiful symphony this Thursday, Friday, and Saturday with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. And I am so thrilled to have Herbert Blomstedt here with us right now. Maestro, welcome.
Herbert Blomstedt Thank you.
Arun Rath You performed the Brahms Symphony so many times with so many orchestras. I'm curious, after so many performances, how do you make the music like we hear in this recording sound so fresh and new?
Herbert Blomstedt Every time I start studyin it from scratch as if I didn't know it. That makes it new. Every performance is as though it was a new piece.
Arun Rath That's fantastic. And when you're starting from scratch, do you still find surprises in Brahms or Schubert?
Herbert Blomstedt Yes. The score is so incredibly rich, it's impossible to find everything at once. It takes more than 97 years to get to the bottom of this piece. I do it with the greatest respect every time. And I'm carried away with the richness of thought, the warmth of thought that is there.
Arun Rath A symphony like this, speaking of Brahms’s First, there's so much in there. It's kind of overwhelming.
Herbert Blomstedt When I study the score, I discover new things every time, and it makes me cry, all the beauty of all of the ideas presented in this music.
Arun Rath When you're actually performing it, I'm curious, because I have that listener response, with the hair standing up on the back of my head when I'm listening to this music, you have so much that you're having to think about when you're conducting it, do you still feel it as a spiritual exercise?
Herbert Blomstedt Well, at the actual performance, of course, every nerve is occupied with this music. When we listen to it, it transforms us. And that is perhaps the best way to describe our experience with this music. We are not the same after this performance as before. It's a profound experience meeting another artist of the grandeur of Johannes Brahms. A very modest man, but a real giant in the era of music. We are totally, totally identifying ourselves with the music. Of course, the Boston Symphony Hall is one of the best halls in the world acoustically. It's a phenomenal place to perform it. The walls reflect the music. Throwing it away against us in the same moment as we utter it, which makes it an experience that it is shocking.
Arun Rath It's fascinating. And I'm curious as well, beyond the hall, playing with the BSO in particular, because you've conducted so many orchestras around the world, what what's special about the BSO, about these players when you're coming to work with them?
Herbert Blomstedt Well, the history of the orchestra is a wonderful saga of beauty. They’ve had very illustrious leaders. And I sat in as a student in 1952, in many of their rehearsals, practically every day, I was sitting in Symphony Hall and listening to rehearsals, and I was dumbfounded by the intensity of playing.
Arun Rath Can you give us some more about your background in Boston? I understand you have deep roots here.
Herbert Blomstedt I grew up partly with you in Boston. I studied in Boston in 1952, at the New England Conservatory of Music. I even conducted the Conservatory Orchestra. One of my first appearances in America was with that orchestra. So, I have many, many roots in Massachusetts.
Arun Rath It’s nice to hear the love for Boston. And you also have been associated with Tanglewood as well, right?
Herbert Blomstedt Well, I had a scholarship for studying in America in 1952 and 53, a whole year. And when the year was passed, I heard about the Tanglewood experience. And I took a chance to go up to Leonard Bernstein, who lived on 57th Street in New York at that time. I was a very shy, young man, but I thought I have to meet him and say I want to go to Tanglewood. And he was a wonderful supporter of young people. And I walked away after a visit in his home half an hour later with a scholarship paying for room and board in the Tanglewood season.
Arun Rath My Lord. I get chills hearing that story. That's amazing.
Herbert Blomstedt Miracles happen every day when you are prepared for them. My months in in Boston were a great experience. One of the concerts of the New England Conservatory Music was played on the radio. And I remember a critique in The Boston Globe that was very fine. They said, we think this young man certainly has a future with the baton. So that was a good start. And the road since then have been a wonderful road of miracles.
Arun Rath You conduct without a baton now, right?
Herbert Blomstedt Yes. The last ten years, I mostly conduct without the baton. The orchestras that I conduct don't need the time beater. They need a musician that they can communicate with who are listening and watching. I could do that with my hands. A stick is really like a little bit of a sword. You can correct people with beating somebody. That's not my style. I try to express the music through my eyes, looking at my fellow musicians and communicating with them every second.
In the beginning of my career, of course, every performance was a breakthrough. It was a first for myself, and it was a of a path of development that started some 80 years ago. And it is continuing today. I love to explain and try to convey the enthusiasms of listening and performing the work when we actually do it. But it's like as if we are doing the composition for the first time. It takes a whole lifetime to learn to listen to learn music.
Arun Rath Herbert Blomstedt is, I can't say it in a line, just one of the greatest conductors ever. He won the Koussevitzky Award in the Saltzburg conducting award before he was 30 and went on to become musical director of a number of orchestras across Europe. We know him best in the States for his work with the San Francisco Symphony. Name a great work by a great composer and you can find a brilliant interpretation on one of his more than 120 records. And if you're lucky, you can still get tickets to see him perform Brahms's First Symphony and Schubert's Sixth with the Boston Symphony Orchestra this Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Maestro, it has been an honor and a delight to talk with you. Thank you so much.
Herbert Blomstedt It was a pleasure to talk with you.