We get "encore broadcasts" while the BSO is on hiatus and Holiday Pops takes over Symphony Hall. Return with us now to last February to hear music of Schubert and Brahms conducted by Herbert Blomstedt. WCRB informs us: https://www.classicalwcrb.org/show/the-boston-symphony-orchestra/2024-10-31/blomstedt-conducts-the-bso
Saturday, December 13, 2025
8:00 PMIn an encore broadcast, one of the masters of the art of conducting for over seven decades returns to lead the BSO in Franz Schubert's light-hearted, cheerful Symphony No. 6, as well as the First Symphony by Johannes Brahms.
Herbert Blomstedt, conductor
Franz SCHUBERT Symphony No. 6
Johannes BRAHMS Symphony No. 1This broadcast was originally broadcast on February 15, 2025, and is no longer available on demand.
To hear Herbert Blomstedt in a conversation with GBH's Arun Rath, use the player above, and read the transcript below.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT:
Arun Rath This is GBH is All Things Considered. I'm Arun Rath.
The BSO performance detail page https://www.bso.org/events/schubert-brahams?performance=2025-02-15-20:00 seems to have a link to MaestroBlomstedt's bio, when you go to the page itself, but none to the program notes for the pieces played:
Herbert Blomstedt, conductor
SCHUBERT Symphony No. 6
-Intermission-
BRAHMS Symphony No. 1Herbert Blomstedt, celebrating a seven-decade conducting career, returns to lead the BSO in Franz Schubert's light-hearted, cheerful Symphony No. 6, composed when he was 20 and notable as a satisfyingly classical work preceding his more searching later symphonies. Brahms was strongly influenced by Schubert but more so still by Beethoven, whose symphonic shadow apparently kept Brahms from completing his First Symphony until he was 43 years old. A prominent theme in its finale is a direct nod to Beethoven’s Ninth.
I posted about it at the time (with a number of embarrassing typos). You might be interested in my observations from the previous day's performance as well as the "enthusiastic review" in the Intelligencer, which I'm linking here again. https://www.classical-scene.com/2025/02/14/blomstedt-balm/
I definitely recommend listening this evening.
