It remains one of the endlessly debated mysteries of music why the work of some orchestral conductors gets more and more compelling with age. Herbert Blomstedt is perhaps the prime example of this phenomenon in the current era. Now a spritely 90, Blomstedt has come slowly and unobtrusively through a long career in Europe and America to reach cult status, but he has unquestionably ascended to that lofty point now, and a packed Barbican hall was proof that the Swede’s drawing power has never been greater.
Blomstedt and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, itself marking its 275th birthday, gave them what was very much a concert of two halves. Before the interval, there was a rare opportunity to hear Beethoven’s triple concerto for violin, cello and piano, a work better known from recordings than from performances in the flesh. But the rewards of this live performance, in a hall that allows the ear to follow detail and interplay between the soloists so clearly, were captivating.
Blomstedt set a bright allegro in the opening movement, but for the most part he was content to ensure that the orchestral accompaniment was efficient and unobtrusive, allowing space for the ear to focus on the soloists. With three such fine players as the Greek violinist Leonidas Kavakos, the French cellist Gautier Capuçon and the Russian-born pianist Kirill Gerstein, this was a constant reward. Capuçon’s light and ardent tone in particular ensured that the textures never became stodgy, as can happen in this piece. His exchanges with Kavakos’s more intense and physical playing were a constant highlight, but the two string players never eclipsed Gerstein’s mellow piano playing, particularly notable in an encore, the adagio from Beethoven’s opus 11 trio.
After the interval, high seriousness reigned in the shape of Bruckner’s seventh symphony, a work premiered by this orchestra under Arthur Nikisch in 1884.
And the chance to hear a special warmth of Brucknerian sound, too, from the Leipzigers, aided and encouraged by Blomstedt’s unusual mastery of transitions, in which new phrases, colours and tempi seemed to emerge naturally out of one another, notably in an unerring handling of the long adagio. Blomstedt’s Bruckner did not dwell on perfection of sound, on orchestral detail or portentous pauses, though it contained all of these things. It felt, above all, organic and forward flowing, with the score coming alive from the inside rather from any attempt by the conductor to impose his ego on it. It was, one understood, the wisdom of years.
