Swedish conductor Herbert Blomstedt makes his debut at 95 with a recording that radiates a serene calm ★★★☆☆

Debuting at 95: Swedish conductor Herbert Blomstedt does it. The world’s oldest active-duty maestro presents his first cd on the Deutsche Grammophon label. In Schuberts Eighth and Ninth Symphony he leads the club of which he was head between 1998 and 2005, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. ‘Ah, one more time!’ reads the somewhat morbid headline in the CD booklet.

Blomstedt, the mature nineties, finds a lot of serenity in the notes of Schubert, at the time a gloomy twenty-something on whom death lurked. Just the opening of the Eighth exudes a superior calm. Whatever turn the music takes later, the Gewandhaus Orchestra continues to lean on its sonorous, superior sound. Admirable, but not necessarily exciting.

Blomstedt himself will set sail for the Amsterdam Concertgebouw twice in the coming season. On the menu are the Fourth and Seventh Symphony by Anton Bruckner. Also a matter of ‘ah, one more time’?