Herbert Blomstedt, San Francisco Symphony Conductor Laureate, Dies at 99

Herbert Blomstedt, music director of the San Francisco Symphony from 1985 to 1995 and its conductor laureate at the time of his death, died on Nov. 4 at the age of 99. His four daughters, who survive him, requested privacy regarding the cause of death.

The news prompted an outpouring of testimony from musicians and administrators who worked with him across five decades. San Francisco Symphony cellist Barbara Bogatin told SF Classical Voice: "Maestro Blomstedt was all about the music, in the purest possible way. When we played Mozart, Schubert, Brahms, Beethoven, or [Anton] Bruckner, he knew every detail of their scores — and was intent on bringing out each articulation, dynamic, expressive marking, structure — all in the service of conveying the emotion that the composer wrote into the music."

Who was Herbert Blomstedt?

Born in Springfield, Massachusetts, to Swedish Seventh-day Adventist missionary parents, Blomstedt lived and died in Gothenburg, Sweden. He spent his life conducting orchestras around the world. His posts included:

• Norrköping Symphony Orchestra (1954–1962)
• Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra (1962–1968)
• Danish Radio Symphony (1967–1977)
• Swedish Radio Symphony (1977–1982)
• Staatskapelle Dresden and Saxon State Opera, chief conductor (1975–1985)
• San Francisco Symphony (1985–1995)
• North German Radio Symphony (1996–1998)
• Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra

In San Francisco, Blomstedt followed Edo de Waart in 1985 and led the orchestra for a decade before Michael Tilson Thomas began his 25-year tenure. He took the SFS on tours of Europe and Asia and made prize-winning recordings for London/Decca, winning two Grammy Awards, a Gramophone Award, a Grand Prix du Disque, and awards from Belgium, Germany, and Japan.

How did he come to San Francisco?

Peter Pastreich, SFS executive director from 1977 to 1999, described the search that brought an almost unknown conductor to California. "We invited Kurt Masur and Wolfgang Sawallisch during Edo's first few years. Both were successful, but we failed to get either to agree to succeed Edo, who left [after the 1984-1985 season]," Pastreich said. "It was Masur who suggested I look at Blomstedt, then music director in Dresden, and little known in the U.S. After several trips to Dresden to see him work and get to know him, and [after] his guest conducting SFS a few times, we offered him the job."

Pastreich's assessment of the decade that followed is blunt. "In his 10 years as music director of the San Francisco Symphony, Herbert Blomstedt transformed a somewhat undisciplined group of extremely talented musicians into one of the world's great orchestras, and he did it using his profound knowledge of music and musicians, his humility and sense of humor, and his inspiring love for the orchestra and what the orchestra means to its community — without once raising his voice," he said. "He lived a simple, spiritual life, devoted to his family, his religion, his intellectual interests, and his orchestra. Working with him changed my life for the better, and I revered and loved him."

Pastreich places Blomstedt among the remarkable group of great conductors who served a small city at "prairie's end," far from what had been for centuries the European center of classical music.

What did musicians remember most?

By nature, Blomstedt was the opposite of a feared Toscanini-like maestro. Veteran SFS violinist Victor Romasevich recalled two things: the music and the man's generosity.

"Some of my most powerfully enriching spiritual musical experiences were being a part of performances of Anton Bruckner's music, conducted by Maestro Blomstedt, the first of which was Bruckner's Symphony No. 5 performed both in San Francisco and during the European Festival Tour in 1990. The Salzburg Festival performance was transcendent," Romasevich said.

He also described a personal debt: "My initial position in SFS was associate principal viola, which I won playing on a borrowed instrument. Knowing that I was under pressure to purchase an instrument while still on probation, Mr. Blomstedt brought a viola from his collection for me to use indefinitely."

John Mangum, SFS director of artistic planning from 2011 to 2014 and now general director of Chicago's Lyric Opera, remembered a dressing-room conversation in which Blomstedt recalled attending Carnegie Hall rehearsals during his Juilliard days led by Bruno Walter, Leopold Stokowski, and Dmitri Mitropoulos. "He was a link to that golden age, and his patient, insightful, generous, and deeply humane music-making gave me and thousands upon thousands of others so many nights of unforgettable music. What a gift his life was," Mangum said.

SF Symphony CEO Matthew Spivey spoke in personal terms: "He showed me that the highest standards and the deepest humanity are two expressions of the same devotion. He prepared every score as though it were the most important work ever written, and he treated every musician on the stage as a partner in bringing it to life. He lived his faith quietly and completely, and you could hear it in every performance."

What happens to his scheduled concerts?

Blomstedt never stopped conducting despite serious health problems in recent years. His final appearance came last May in San Francisco. He had scheduled appearances in Davies Hall for January 2027; those concerts will now be performed in his honor, led by SFS Music Director Designate Elim Chan.

"It feels only natural that we dedicate those concerts to his memory and legacy," Chan said. "With [Edward] Elgar's Enigma Variations, a work so deeply connected to friendship, we can celebrate the relationships and musical community that he helped nurture. The musicians themselves will be the soloists that week, and it will be a beautiful way to honor the remarkable foundation Maestro Blomstedt worked to build here."

Blomstedt's recorded legacy centers on 19th- and early-20th-century repertory; his recordings of Jean Sibelius and Carl Nielsen are held in particularly high esteem. He programmed annual Beethoven festivals and felt an apparent spiritual connection to Bruckner. His repertory was narrower than de Waart's or Tilson Thomas's, though he did perform works by contemporary American composers Charles Wuorinen and George Perle. The January 2027 memorial concerts will be the first public measure of the foundation he left in San Francisco.