Herbert Blomstedt conducts Schubert & Brahms

Herbert Blomstedt, conductor

SCHUBERT Symphony No. 6
BRAHMS Symphony No. 1

Herbert 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.