Herbert Blomstedt

Herbert Blomstedt was one of the most respected conductors of his generation, a specialist in Romantic and early 20th-century repertory who held long-term music directorships on both sides of the Atlantic. He died in November 2026, aged 99. Blomstedt made his professional debut in 1954 with the Stockholm Philharmonic, and the same year became music director of the Norrköping Symphony. Posts in Scandinavia and Germany followed: the Oslo Philharmonic, the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra and, as chief conductor, the Staatskapelle Dresden. He then led the San Francisco Symphony as music director from 1985 to 1995, before returning to Europe as chief conductor of the NDR Symphony Orchestra and, from 1998, music director of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. Blomstedt’s extensive discography included a Brahms symphony cycle with the Gewandhaus Orchestra, recorded between 2019 and 2021.