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Thursday, November 20, 2025
Konserthuset, Stockholm, Sweden
Bruckner Nine is currently Herbert Blomstedt’s music of the moment, several recent performances and also one that marked his ninety-seventh birthday (July 11 last year).
His comprehensive lifetime-experienced conducting of Bruckner’s unfinished Symphony this time graced Stockholm played by an orchestra that has a long association with this conductor, such rapport evident throughout, the RSPO (concertmaster, Joakim Svenheden, who occupied a similar seat with the London Philharmonic a couple of decades ago) less refulgent than some ensembles, bringing a welcome steely quality to tuttis, for a reading that seemed to move along a little more than some of Blomstedt’s recent examples, certainly emotionally urgent, tumultuous in the development section, followed by a measured, grinding Scherzo and scurrying Trio. The slow/final movement was a dignified, if questioning and painful, leave-taking. What a shame that clapping came too early, disrupting the silence.
It mattered not that this was the fourth Blomstedt Bruckner Ninth in less than three months: the ears and senses remained fresh and receptive for a performance that was indeed a little more flowing (fifty-eight minutes) compelling the listener to disregard previous ones for that length of time, yet remembrance (possibly fallible) played its part in appreciating that Blomstedt is not mechanical and does subtle changes that may not be planned and which speak of immediate communication.
A further Stockholm Bruckner Nine is scheduled for this Saturday at 3-o’clock. Lest it is being thought that Blomstedt is becoming a one-piece conductor, when he reaches the Bamberger Symphoniker for concerts on December 12 & 13 the repertoire is Beethoven and Sibelius, respectively Symphony Four and Symphony Five.