Neues Gewandhaus
— Thursday 16 April 2026, 19:30. Friday 17 April 2026, 19:30. Sunday 19 April 2026, 11:00
- Werner De Smet
- Photos: (c) Christian Modla
The following is translated from the Dutch original, with a link to same at the foot
From the moment Herbert Blomstedt takes his seat in the hall of the Gewandhaus in Leipzig on April 16, the tension in the room changes. Not audibly, not visibly in a spectacular sense, but as a subtle shift in the sense of time: as if the clock is losing its teeth. He sits there simply, almost fragilely, and yet precisely in that silence something inevitable already seems to be contained. What follows is not a concert in the classical sense, but an experience that sharpens the act of listening itself.
The moment he begins Anton Bruckner’s (1824-1896) Fourth Symphony, there is that small miracle that you cannot search for, and yet unfolds as if it had always been meant to be. The music does not just begin; it emerges, slowly, with a self-evidence that seems possible only when someone is at the helm who no longer needs to prove anything.
In a conversation in Paris years ago, Blomstedt told me something that echoed in my mind again tonight: that for Bruckner’s symphonies, he always chooses the version that offers the listener the most fulfillment. Not musicological victory, not historical accuracy as dogma, but listening itself as the ultimate measure. Even then, he assumed that many people might truly hear such a work only once in their lives, and that it therefore had to be “finished.” Complete—not in the sense of concluded, but of experienced as completed.
Tonight, he chose the version of the second Fassung of Bruckner’s “Romantic” prepared by Korstvedt, an edition dedicated to him as recently as 2018. The detail seems almost symbolic: a man in his nineties taking up a new reading of Bruckner, not out of nostalgia but out of curious devotion. What became immediately clear was striking: if you know him, you know that he normally conducts Bruckner without a score. Tonight, however, there was one on the music stand. Sometimes he turned several pages at once, with a sort of deliberate efficiency, but in those passages where essential differences were inherent in the text, you could see him change. His gaze became sharper, his attention more concentrated, and his gestures acquired an almost tangible precision. As if he were not only conducting, but rediscovering.
The performance itself unfolded slightly slower than what I had heard him achieve before, for example with the Vienna Philharmonic or the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Bruckner’s Fourth. But that “slower” is a misleading word here. It was not about slowing down, but about broadening. The space became larger, the resonance deeper. And perhaps that is precisely what a new edition can do for a 98-year-old conductor: tempo ceases to be an end in itself, but becomes a consequence of attention.
What struck me above all was that the music never became ponderous. On the contrary: it went inward, not outward. Every layer of sound was stripped of its external weight to be examined to the bone. It is not a matter of authority or completion, but of listening that opens up ever further, as if something else is audible beneath every layer. Blomstedt keeps digging, as if a layer lies hidden in every score, wanting to appear only to him. Not for effect, not for demonstration, but for revelation.
What unfolded in this way was not Bruckner as a monument, but Bruckner as a breathing organism. Sometimes sculpted almost imperceptibly by a simple hand movement, a finger indication sufficient to tilt an entire sound world. The Gewandhaus Orchestra responds to this not as an instrument being played, but as a body moving along with an inner pulse it already knows. There is a mutual trust that no longer needs to be expressed.
And then there is that paradox that cannot be resolved but can be experienced: a conductor who lays the score open again, while at the same time seeming to conduct from a memory that extends beyond paper. The pages are turned, but the music seems to have long been present within him in its final form.
What remains afterwards is not a sensation, but a quiet clarity. As if something has been left behind in the room that does not immediately disappear. Blomstedt shows no nostalgia, no looking back, but an exceptional form of presence. He places Bruckner not in the past, but in a timeless now in which listening itself becomes the most important gesture.
Perhaps therein lies the true miracle of this evening: not that a 98-year-old conductor is still standing on stage, but that he allows the music to breathe so fully that age, time, and history lose their grip. As if they play no role for a moment. What remains is sound, clear and stripped of everything outside of it.
And perhaps that is the real secret of this performance of Bruckner’s Fourth: that it does not sound like a monument you visit, but like a landscape in which you are allowed to dwell. Not something that reveals itself from a distance, but something into which you are absorbed, without imposing itself.
In that landscape, Herbert Blomstedt stands with a self-evident calm. Without emphasis, without a gesture that demands attention, he simply lets the music exist. And precisely because of this, everything becomes larger: every line, every breath, every harmonic shift is given space to speak without being steered in the direction of effect.
What remains is not a conclusion, but an afterglow – a silence in which something of the music remains present, without speaking out any longer.
“The highest, which is the best for man, is the highest.” (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre)
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Rehearsal (photo by Christine, also of the hall)…
From Leipziger Volkszeitung…
“What is breathtaking is how the Gewandhaus Orchestra follows the conductor’s most subtle cues, to whom it owes its current world-class status. How the magical instrument, led by Cornelia Grohmann on solo flute, lends logic and sensuality to Bruckner’s bold anticipations of Mahler and beyond. How the brass section, under Lukas Beno, manages to combine attack and discipline. How the left brass section, under Tillmann Höfs, helps to contain and center Bruckner’s harmonic horizons. How the strings, under Frank-Michael Erben, sing, radiate, and revel. All of this comes together to create a performance that one will likely only experience once in a lifetime.”