Herbert Blomstedt: Exclusive 90th Birthday Collection
Happy Birthday, Maestro Blomstedt! On the occasion of Herbert Blomstedt’s 90th birthday, IDAGIO, in collaboration with Accentus Music and querstand, is releasing a three-part, exclusive feature of outstanding recordings of his work.
Read more…Exclusively on IDAGIO: Ludwig van Beethoven - The Complete Symphonies: The new Beethoven cycle with Herbert Blomstedt
In celebration of Herbert Blomstedt’s 90th birthday in July 2017, Accentus Music is releasing a new Beethoven cycle that captures the extraordinary spirit of the long-standing partnership between the legendary conductor laureate and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig. All nine symphonies are live recordings made at the Leipzig Gewandhaus between May 2014 and March 2017.
Blomstedt’s interpretations of Beethoven are based on a highly responsible handling of the scores and this conductor’s deep love of the truth; to Blomstedt, everything factitious and superficially effective is thoroughly alien. At the same time however, the performances embrace the ethical conscience of the artist, with his deep, almost seismographic musical sensibility and a high expressivity.
Exclusively on IDAGIO: Anton Bruckner: Symphonies nos. 1–9
For Herbert Blomstedt, the symphonies of Anton Bruckner have always played an important role, and a number of them have marked prominent points of his conducting career. This is also true of his work with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig: Bruckner and Blomstedt - together with the Gewandhausorchester this became a symbiosis, awe-inducing and penetrating in a uniquely moving way. As his introduction to the position of the Gewandhauskapellmeister in 1998, Herbert Blomstedt conducted Bruckner’s Third Symphony; the Ninth Symphony began his media collaboration with the orchestra; and with the Eighth Symphony, he officially left his Kapellmeister position in July 2005. Afterwards the orchestra appointed him Conductor Laureate, and he regularly returned to the Gewandhaus podium for concerts. The release of this Eighth Symphony caused a tremendous response both in the media and in the audience, sparking the demand for Blomstedt to record a Bruckner cycle with the orchestra. In 2012, just in time for the conductor's 85th birthday, this cycle was completed. The result is an impressive testament to the blind understanding between the conductor and the orchestra, matured over many years, as well the conductor’s wisdom of age. In some cases, the cycle also contains less frequently heard versions of the symphonies; for example, the Second Symphony in C minor is the original 1872 version published by William Carragan. Blomstedt also chose the original 1873 version of the Third Symphony in D minor, which still contains extensive Wagner quotations, later erased.
Herbert Blomstedt in Leipzig, 1998–2005
Herbert Blomstedt ended his tenure as the 18th Kapellmeister of the Leipzig Gewandhausorchester with special concerts on July 1 and 2, 2005. This was the end of a seven-year, highly-successful era for the Gewandhausorchester, for Leipzig, and for the music world overall, an era in which the musical city of Leipzig had the best imaginable representatives. The Leipzigers and their guests experienced cultural heritage and wonderful music (such as works of composers from Blomstedt’s Scandinavian homeland, previously seldom or never heard in Leipzig) in up-close, personal, and unique ways.
This collection of live performances of the most important concerts include symphonies by Anton Bruckner, Johannes Brahms, Carl Nielsen, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (the first recording of the new edition of the Scottish Symphony), works by Johann Adam Hiller (the first recording of the Overture to “Die Jagd”), Max Reger, Siegfried Matthus, and again Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (among other things, the first recording of the new edition of the second piano concerto), who was probably the most important predecessor of Herbert Blomstedt in the Kapellmeister position.