The Inextinguishable Herbert Blomstedt

The 94-year-old Swedish conductor Herbert Blomstedt returned last week for his annual visit to the San Francisco Symphony where he was Music Director from 1985 to 1995. He was conducting two of his old favorites, the Danish composer Carl Nielsen's 1916 Symphony No. 4 "The Inextinguishable" and Beethoven's Symphony No. 5.

I was not a big fan of Blomstedt during his SFS Music Director days because his programming was so conservative, focused mostly on 19th century Western music. However, on his annual Conductor Laureate visits, he seemed to be getting better with each passing year conducting the classics with such conviction that they sounded fresh and vital. Over the last decade I have been been putting the word out that his guest conducting appearances with his old orchestra are extraordinary events, and music critic Alex Ross must have picked up the signal because the magazine just recently published Ross's The Most Vital Conductor of Beethoven Is 94.

The Nielsen Symphony is a strange beast from the late Romantic period, sounding like an amalgamation of Sibelius, Grieg, and Mahler (none of them Danish). The symphony starts off with a loud beginning that resolves into a triumphant melody which never quite resolves. Through four uninterrupted movements over 35+ minutes, you can come up with your own scenario, whether it's a reflection on the contemproary World War I as has often been posited, or a mystical summing up of the earth's forces per the composer, or an allegory for our Covid pandemic per my spouse. The performance was completely-absorbing and when the two tympanists on either side of the stage began their series of duels, the excitement accelerated, finishing off with that initial transcendent theme that sort of, finally, comes to a climax.

I had never heard the Beethoven Fifth Symphony performed live before because it's so ubiquitous. The famous first movement reminded me why I have an aversion to Beethoven the Bludgeoner, and Blomstedt took the second movement slow enough that it almost fell apart. The final two movements turned into a musical experience that was literally transcendent. The orchestra and audience were put into a musical trance and the nonagenarian conductor looked like he was dancing in sound. It would not have been surprising to see him levitate