Conductor Blomstadt is a ‘musician’s musician’

‘Music must sing’

SBy Cezary Owerkowicz

ometimes my readers ask me how I get the inspiration when I am writing articles. However, I would say except for the famous jubilees or great events they are so different. This summer I was driving to pick up my son from the Krakow airport, one of the two nearest airports to our mountainous home.

On the way I was listening to the symphonic concert containing some light orchestral hits and huge and heavy Symphonies by Gustav Mahler. The San Francisco Symphony orchestra was perfectly playing under the master hand of its conductor. The music was wise, mature but with ‘winkles of the eye’, characteristic for young people. But the real Master was Herbert.

I know everybody knows the famous ‘conductor Herbert’ as ‘von Karajan’, the Austrian master from Vienna. But this is not the right answer. That conductor is Swedish and his name is Herbert Blomstadt. As for additional information last year he celebrated his 90th birthday and he is still active, working, performing.

He was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, but during his early childhood he left with parents in native Scandinavia. Growing as a child in Helsinki (Finland) he studied the piano, violin and organ and became accomplished at all three.

“I was always hopelessly in love with music,” he remembers. “Even as a child I could never get enough. I would play string quartets all day and all night if I couldn’t find people to play with me. I wouldn’t even stop to eat. Admittedly this was hard on my friends. At nine, I would go to the church and play the organ till dawn,” he said.

From the beginning he was a very religious person, a devoted Seventh Day Adventist who eschews alcohol, tobacco, coffee, tea and meat and refuses to rehearse on Saturdays (which his church regards as the Sabbath) After graduating from high school he considered becoming a theologian, then a physician, but finally music making got the better of him.

He entered the Stockholm Royal College of Music and The University in Uppsala. Post-graduating studies and continued studying abroad under famous conductors: in Paris, New York – Juilliard School and Tandlewood – at Berkshire Centre (under Leonard Bernstein among others).

Meanwhile he won the Koussevitzki Conducting Prize and Salzburg Conducting Competition. He debuted with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic in 1954. Even top world awards and possibilities to aspire to the world renowned stages and orchestras he settled for long with the Scandinavian Orchestras.

Owerkowicz

Ambitions

For seven years he was the music director but somehow the regional Norrkoping Symphony in Sweden, after six years as a first conductor of Oslo Philharmonic, Norway, partly simultaneously with Danish Radio Orchestra (ten years). “I have no very pronounced career ambitions,” says the conductor. Because, quite frankly, I don’t think it’s in my hands. Neither do I have a desire to establish some kind of ‘Blomstadt sound’.

‘Sit at the corner; nobody will find (search for) you,’ he says, rather criticizing modesty. In his case it appeared wrong. He became to be invited as a guest conductor to such world principal orchestras as Berliner Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, the best American: Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia Symphonies with New York Philharmonic, and Asian with Tokyo NHK Symphony.

That period was pointed by ten years long (1985-1995) directorship of San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. They also appeared together to critical acclaim at major European concert venues and top festivals including Edinburg, Salzburg, Munich and Lucerne. He organizes and performs and tours for his 75th anniversary of the Symphony, which was established in 1911. There he is a continuator of such masters’ conductors as Pierre Monteux or Seji Ozawa.

I am a little worried that Europe has forgotten that San Francisco exists. One of the reasons would be that the European and American orchestras approach music in different ways. The approach of old European orchestras is symphonic playing like chamber music. Each member of an ensemble tries to hear the other. Their goal is music must be always beautiful. Even fortissimo, the music MUST SING! If the score calls for a shock, it must be a beautiful shock.

Maybe it is a secret of his equal successes in Europe and America. He describes differences between his ‘two native continents’ as the way of showing criticism and appreciation for both because he knows and loves both? In America, we think that virtuosity and brilliance are very important. We also have very large halls so that orchestras think they have to play very loud to be heard.

Sometimes we have to learn to play less loudly and listen to each other a little more. I’ve also noticed an intense aggressiveness and and I’ll show you quality among young American musicians that you almost never find in Europe.

Systems

He knows also two different systems – environments for art and music. He was also a guest conductor with ‘Dresden’s Staatskapelle’ (exactly on the German State’s band) during a Communist era.

Dresden is Saxony city with rich history. During that time was part of the so-called DDR, totally controlled by the Soviet Union ‘German Democratic Republic’. It was one of those incredible experiences that throw your whole work upside down. Staatskapelle is one of the world’s greatest orchestra. They have a cultivated musical sound that’s remained virtually unchanged throughout the years. But because they were on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain we knew very little about them in the West.

Politics never entered into our relationship. The only problem we sometimes had was that we couldn’t get enough Western money to rent scores. There were a lot of guns in that society. Too many guns for me since the Roman Emperors device to deal with the people was, ‘Give the people bread and circuses and they will not revolt’. Saxonian kings cared for their people, gave them jobs and bread and defended their borders, but they also gave them entertainment of a high order especially for their visitors, who wanted to see their splendor.

Circus was one of the oldest and most popular art.

NB. Dresden Staatskapelle is also one of the world’s oldest orchestras. It was founded 470 years ago, in 1548 by Maurice, Elector of Saxony and existed later as The Electoral Saxon and Royal Polish Band. (Elector August became also The King of Poland. Its principal conductor was composer of the first German opera, Heinrich Schutz, followed by such famous composers as Carl Maria von Weber and Richard Wagner among others. Herbert Blomstedt until now has a title of Ehrendirigent (Honorary Conductor) of the ensemble.

The conductor of an orchestra is just one musician among many, says this man, who is called a ‘Musician’s musician’.

He says: Sometimes I am very unhappy, of course, every musician is. But most of the time the joys and the beauty far outweighs the weariness or the failures, which is one of the wonderful things with the music. It stimulates so much. It’s a perfect blend of beauty and of truth, a sort of absolute, un-discussible truth that really speaks of some ultimate truth that is difficult to formulate, but I know that everything is seeking.

Personally, the conductor explains, “I’m more drawn to searching music that suggests the kind of transcendental values that words cannot express. Through music we can sometimes travel to that part of human soul where we are closest to the finest aspects of ourselves, closest to God. And there’s where I most love to dwell, tells us that Very Special Conductor.”

Editor’s Note: Cezary Owerkowicz is the chairman of the Kuwait Chamber of Philharmonia and talented pianist. He regularly organises concerts by well-known musicians for the benefit of music lovers and to widen the knowledge of music in Kuwait. His email address is: cowerkowicz @ yahoo.com and cowerkowicz@ hotmail.com