SFist Interviews SF Symphony Conductor Laureate Herbert Blomstedt

You will conduct the SF Symphony Thursday through Saturday. Then on Sunday and Monday, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra will visit Davies Symphony Hall. You were music director of both orchestras, and conducted both numerous times, how different are they?

Both orchestras are of course of a very high quality, they belong to the leading orchestras of the world. They have difference in history. The LGO is a very old orchestra, in fact THE oldest civic orchestra in history. Other orchestras are older in Europe, but they are tied up to the King or the courts mostly or they are tied to opera houses that the kings had to show their splendor. There is a difference of history, and they are world apart, but musically they are very related. The SF Symphony is the one of the most European sounding orchestras in the US, and that I say as a great compliment. Not that America sounding is not so fine, there's a special, brilliant, edgy, sometimes fantastic sound to American sound, which the SFS can also produce when they want and have the right conductor. But the European sound of the SFS was striking even in the first time I played with the orchestra in 1984; I felt very much at home. There is much common ground here, and it will be interesting for the public to compare these two orchestras together on succeeding days.

Are they other differences in the way they operate?

Yes, they operate of course differently. They are economically backed differently. The typical European orchestra has a lot of state or communal funding and is not so dependent on ticket sales as the typical American orchestra. There is no endowment for EU orchestra, the endower is the state. So the economical background is different.

So the conductor does not have to schmooze that much with the patrons in Europe?

I would not say so. The development department of an American orchestra is very organized department, and they are happy to have the support of the conductor at some important moments of their work. But it is not true that the conductor has to be present at so many dinners and rallies as often as they say. At least it was not true in SF.

I was happy to meet the donors at highlights of the season. We had very good contacts, but I never had the feeling that it was a burden. It's a joy to be in contact with the public. The development department of the European orchestra is much smaller, they don't have such function.

Would you approach preparing a piece differently depending on the sound and strength of the orchestra?

The difference is not that great. Normally, I have in the Gewandhaus five rehearsals, and normally I have four in SF, it's not so big a difference. In Gewandhaus, I can have less than five, and on some rare occasions there's possibility of more rehearsal in SF. There is really no need for it even. They work extremely fast and are very effective. And they take up the new ideas immediately, almost instinctively. I don't come to rehearsal in SF with another approach than in Gewandhaus. The orchestras instinctively follow their conductor, his temperament and his gestures. I don't remember ever having to say "now please do European sound." I am an American with a European background, and they play like they are conducted. That's the essence of good orchestras.

What trends have you seen over your career in orchestras and conducting since the 50s?

There has been many changes around the orchestra. I can mention some of them. The change of management has been dramatic. When I started conducting, nobody asked me for instance, what are you rehearsing today. Now, every rehearsal, and every hour of rehearsal is planned three months ahead, sometimes three years ahead. The musicians came to a rehearsal, opened up their music and asked: "what are we playing today?" Now, they demand, rightly so, to know what are we rehearsing at 10am, 10:15am, at 11:15am, so they can plan their their time and be best prepared for the rehearsal. That is testament to the worth of their time. Every musician has his private schedule, and now he has to know when he has to do his absolute best and when he has to be in waiting position. That's a great advantage.

The technique of the players has generally been rising during these 50, 60, 70 years of my experience. It does not mean that the musicians a couple generations ago were not so good. They were different, they were playing more instinctively. Since the stylistic scope of everyday music playing was not at all as it is today, they were steeped in one single tradition. Today, they have to, from one minute to another, change the style of playing, from what suits a piece from 1750 and the next minute, they have to play something from 1950, with a completely different approach. So they have to be more versatile than they used to.

There are drawbacks to be conquered. When you have a definite style, and that is the style of the day, and that does not change so fast, then the interpretation gets more unified and homogeneous. When you have to change all the time like a chameleon, changing color every second, then it becomes technically perfect, but not so convincing perhaps musically. So it has drawbacks.

How about the repertoire, are they pieces written during your career that you think would make it into the classical canon?

It's a difficult to prophesize of course, but that would be amazing if that's not the case. Which piece will survive, we are not sure. It's amazing how fast some music was convincingly played once came to oblivion. And it's amazing how we rediscover pieces that had been obscured for 100, 200 years.

The amount of music in the repertoire is growing so enormously that it's impossible to have an overview of it all. We can only test what we think is the highlight. The 20th century music is full of such highlights. I'd mention Stravinsky, Bela Bartok, Hindemith, that generation.

Your soloist Joshua Roman is in his twenties, is there a generational gap to bridge?

That's exciting. I feel there is such enormous multitude of young extremely talented musicians that are very ambitious and technically very brilliant. And Haydn's concerto definitely needs such a player. It's horribly difficult from the technical point of view. And musically as well, it's on the brink between baroque and classical music. I have never heard of him, but he filled in on very short notice and the management of the SFS have very good report on him, so I'm very curious.

At the same time, I'm sorry that Mr Grebanier, who was scheduled to play the solo part, cannot do it due to his health. He was there first time I have played with the orchestra in 1984. I immediately noticed him sitting at the first desk of the cello. He's a formidable player. He's one of the orchestra musicians I admire most. I've played many years with the orchestra, and I've never heard him make a wrong entrance or missing an entry. He looks very calm, but he's very concentrated, he's always 100%. He thinks a lot, he does not say very much but he thinks a lot. And he has very definite opinion of the music. It's always interesting to discuss the music with him.

You paired Haydn and Beethoven Eroica together in the program, is it to show a filiation between these composers?

Haydn is the father of all the classical composers. Beethoven studied with him and revered him enormously. He said of Haydn: he's the father, and we are the sons. Haydn's achievements as a composer has sometimes been a little bit overshadowed by his immediate followers, Mozart or Beethoven. I think it's an unjust development. Haydn's greatness is discovered more and more today.

In my youth, he was considered a forerunner who did the basic job so to speak to develop the classical style. But he really is the towering master. His inventiveness and his control of the symphonic apparatus is just incredible, and even more so with his incredible output. It's unbelievable how fresh it sounds even today.

Beethoven wandered in his footsteps. In Beethoven's First Symphony, we can hear a lot of Haydn. The lion's paw is there also, but the indebtedness is evident.

A couple years later, the symphony #3 is on a much grander inner scale. It's a milestone in the development of the symphony. It's coming of course as the result of Beethoven's situation with his deafness starting to be evident and becoming a problem. And what a problem for a composer to lose his hearing. But he did not sit back in despair, he took the bull by the horn and fought it. That attitude of defiance, even scorn, is in the Eroica Symphony, and even in all the output of Beethoven afterward, it's a result of an enormous strong sense of resolve and enormous willpower that's evident for every listener.