Herbert Blomstedt, who headed the San Francisco Symphony from 1985-95 and led orchestras in Scandinavia and Germany during a career over seven decades, died Wednesday. He was 99.
Blomstedt died at his home in Gothenburg, Sweden, according to his management agency, KünstlerSekretariat am Gasteig.
His final performance was on May 15 with the San Francisco Symphony at Davies Hall, when he entered the stage in a wheelchair and struggled to get through Gustav Mahler's Ninth Symphony, which halted for several minutes during the third movement. He was replaced for concerts the following two days and canceled future scheduled appearances this year.
“An an extraordinary role model," Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra music director Manfred Honeck said. "One of the greatest conductors and a beacon of humanity.”
Blomstedt had performances scheduled into 2027, including with the Vienna Philharmonic next June, just shy of what would have been his 100th birthday.
“Until the very end, we had hoped to celebrate his 100th birthday with a concert together,” Vienna Philharmonic chairman Daniel Froschauer said.
Blomstedt was a Seventh-day Adventist who refused to conduct rehearsals on Friday nights and Saturdays because of the Sabbath but would lead performances on those days because he considered himself a preacher of music.
“Every bar, every note is shared by us, and it’s a very intense communication,” he said of his conducting during an interview with “CBS Sunday Morning” broadcast last year. “It’s like intense sex.”
He won Grammy Awards for recordings with the San Francisco Symphony of Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana” in 1993 and of Johannes Brahms’ “Ein Deutsches Requiem” in 1996.
“My mission is to bring good music to as many people as possible,” he said in an interview posted in 2020 by the DW Music YouTube channel. “It makes you think differently. You gave a more keen feeling for proportions and beauty.”
Blomstedt was principal conductor of the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra in Sweden from 1954-63, music director of the Oslo Philharmonic from 1962–68, principal conductor of the Danish Radio Symphony from 1967-77 and the Swedish Radio Symphony from 1977-82 and then became chief conductor of the Staatskapelle Dresden and Semperoper in Germany from 1975-85.
“Almost like turning an electrical switch for me,” he added. “When I hear the sound, it transforms me. I'm in heaven.”
Esa-Pekka Salonen, who led the San Francisco Symphony from 2020-25, said during an interview with London's Philharmonia Orchestra in 2021 that he asked Blomstedt how he was filled with joy that orchestras responded to.
“I refuse to have any stress,” Salonen recalled Blomstedt telling him. “I only do things I absolutely love. I only conduct music that matters to me and I only work with people that I like and in some cases love.”
After leaving San Francisco, Blomstedt was principal conductor of Hamburg's NDR Symphony Orchestra from 1996-98 and music director of the Leipzig Gewanhaus Orchestra from 1998-2005.
Born to Swedish parents in Springfield, Massachusetts, on July 11, 1927.
His family moved back to Sweden in 1929 and he attended Stockholm's Royal Academy of Music and Uppsala University. He studied under Igor Markevitch, then with Jean Morel at The Juilliard School.
When his scholarship at Juilliard was about to expire, he showed up without an appointment at Leonard Bernstein's apartment at The Osborne across from Carnegie Hall, rang the doorbell and left a half-hour later with a scholarship to study with Bernstein at the Tanglewood Music Center in Lenox, Massachusetts. Blomstedt was impressed with Bernstein's musicianship but disliked his exuberant podium mannerisms.
Blomstedt won the Koussevitzky Conducting Prize in 1953, made his professional debut with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra in 1954 and won the Salzburg Conducting Competition in 1955.
He married his wife, the former Waltraud Petersen, in 1955, and she died in 2003. He is survived by four daughters and seven grandchildren.