Seiji Ozawa Essentials

The Japanese conductor Seiji Ozawa, who died in February 2024 at the age of 88, was a master of orchestral colour and detail. Born in 1935, his musical career began in spectacular fashion as assistant to Leonard Bernstein at Tanglewood and student of Herbert von Karajan in Berlin. By his early thirties, Ozawa was music director of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra after which he moved to the San Francisco Symphony. Ozawa’s international fame, however, was cemented during an extraordinary 29-year stint as music director of the Boston Symphony, where he championed contemporary music (including that of his countryman Tōru Takemitsu), as well as swathes of core symphonic repertoire. In this playlist, you can experience the breadth and depth of Ozawa’s recorded legacy, from Beethoven and Mendelssohn to Berg and Stravinsky. Many of these performances are still revered to this day.