Just in: Leif Segerstam has died
RIPThe prolific Finnish symphonist and conductor died today aged 80, his son has reported.
After a musical education that he rounded off at Juilliard in New York, Segerstam became chief conductor at Finnish National Opera, and at Stockholm’s Royal Opera. A man of prodigious appetites for all of life’s pleasures, he had about him an aura that persuaded orchestral musicians to tolerate his flamboyant difference. The Philharmonia Orchestra in London fell under his spell. He held posts in Copenhagen and Vienna. He married two Helsinki musicians and was divorced from both.
If he was not conducting, he sat down to compose. At the last count he had written 371 symphonies, few of them ever performed.
A Segerstam concert was always an experience, never predictable. He was an exceptional interpreter, surprisingly, of Brahms. His Sibelius was more richly coloured than the norm. His abundant size and outspokenness tended to occlude his very unusual musical gifts.
He liked to say he was descended from shamans.
And I was soooo looking forward to Symphony #372…
My condolences to his friends and family.
He was apparently slightly crazy but a great conductor.
RIP.
To me he seemed optimally crazy.
I heard him conduct Mahler 3 in Chicago—a collective performance so impressive that, in the stillness at the conclusion of the third movement, the hall heard an awestruck whistle of appreciation from someone in the audience. I bet there were smiles in the orchestra.
He was also a violinist, a violist and a pianist. Many of his Symphonies are conductorless.
His performances were always a must to hear when I was working in Finland for the unexpected and revealing. RIP Leif you’ll be missed by many.
Rest in peace, crazy genius!
A great man! THAT Bruckner 8…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_ipQFV_IbI
The only conductor-finn who made something important.
Possibly the only “Finn stick” besides Jorma that wasn’t bashed by NL.
You do write such bollocks. Time for you to take a slippedisc break.
Very sad news. I had the great opportunity of seeing him conduct the Finnish National Opera in August 2000. I believe in addition he was also a violinist.
Segerstam’s interpretations have greatly enriched my listening.
The Sibelius cycle he did with Helsinki (Ondine) is a total treasure.
This makes me very sad. Rest now maestro.
Heard him conduct Die Walkure superbly in 2011 in Helsinki – RIP, Maestro.
Wonderful musician, unforgettable character who thought outside the box. The world would be a better place with more Leif Segerstams.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwIWFS_24MY
RIP
One of the best performances of Scheherazade is conducted by Segerstam, see minute 45:00 https://youtu.be/zY4w4_W30aQ?si=AzC4cKmuP2H2Jh-v
I only saw/heard him conduct once – the very fine 1972 Strehler production of Seraglio in Salzburg with its extensive use of silhouette. At the time he seemed to be concentrating on opera. I wish I could have attended one of his later performances of Sibelius.
What a fine conductor he was! And superb musician. Not sure about his composing. His Scheherazade (on YouTube) is the most outrageous performance ever with his vocal additions. Maybe his passing will trigger someone at Chandos to reissue his superb Mahler symphonies. I’m sorry I never got to hear him in a live concert. RIP.
I saw him conduct the Chicago Symphony several times, some 20 years ago or so, initially to fill in for another conductor for a Mahler performance.
He was a totally unique figure, and possibly the most talented musician I have ever met – pianist, violinist, composer, conductor, recorder player, tenor. He won the most prestigious piano and violin competitions in Finland – with 2 weeks in between. He composed almost 400 symphonies – beat that, Haydn. Perfect pitch down to 1 Hz. Wake him up in the middle of the night and ask him to tap out metronome marking 88 – he did it. Could read any score like today’s newspaper. He jumped in for Aho’s flute concerto (with Sharon Bezaly) at a moment’s notice and just conducted the immensely intricate score with meter changes every second bar like it was nothing.
I have personally recorded him as violinist, pianist, conductor, composer. Completely overwhelming in all ways – weighed almost 35 stones at some stage, could eat one each of the whole menu in one sitting (I saw that in Salzburg). All in all – a completely unique person. Legendary for his comments – when a musician, playing a repeated figure in one of his symphonies, asked how many repetitions he should play, Leif answered: “until I look at you stoppingly”. The world is poorer without him. Much poorer. I miss him!
Robert von Bahr, BIS Records
Thank you for sharing your precious memories. I am grateful for your work, cherish my BIS CDs, and am most definitely not alone.
In memory of Leif Segerstam, I today ordered the CD set of Scriabin symphonies (Royal Stockholm Phil) and also Rott’s first (Norrköping Symphony) on vinyl (2 LP!).
Thank you for recording these things so well and making the recordings available in physical form for such a long time!
What an informed, warm beautiful obituary. As a non-musician I’m left wondering about his composing. So many nasty little derogatory comments on this blog. But, what if he did not compose for anyone else. Quite possibly he didn’t give a ‘tinkers cuss’ (or hoot), take your pick, about what others thought of his efforts. He composed because he HAD to. It was simply part of who he was. Which sounds very interesting. A man I’d like to have met.
He was a panoramic Mahler conductor and added the woody forest aromas to Sibelius, like an infusion in a Finnish sauna.
In between, he chastised the audience with bundles of his manifold short symphonies which will now probably fall into oblivion until one day a Finnish youth will raise them from the annals.
The swan of Tuonela is sad today.
His recording of Sibelius’s Lemminkainen Legends has not been surpassed. One of the few conductors, along with Michael Schonwandt and Edward Downes (1990) to conduct Louis Glass’s 5th Symphony. A symphony which Glass entitled ‘Swastika’, relating to the Sanskrit – the wheel of life, before it was misappropriated by the Nazis. A symphony that Carl Nielsen would not promote at a Danish music festival he was running because he didn’t want Glass to gain popularity.
So this is a bash on Nielsen?
The music world has just a great original composer and a Brahms look- alike conductor. I worked with him many times and enjoyed every moment.
His legacy of absurd unusual sayings and rehearsal comments are too long to mention. He invented words on the spot to suit his needs.
Here are just a few:
Could we have a relativity normal beginning?
Take “La Forza Del Destino” and half it.
Like an old time Western locomotive we can get the organity of the puffing.
The kaleidescopic flexator on the podium — the conductor.
The string section without the basses is a plasmatic living cluster
You have to become a little dirty about the fingerboard there.
The quintuplet should be freshly and rudely the same as the triplet.
Still together, conductified.
The winds can rehearse the length of the teedle-eedle-boom.
How about talking about the spot where someone composes the registration number of his car.
Could we have a rude accord between First and Second Violins?
You don’t need to count here. You won’t get lost because at the end, I will turn and look at you stoppingly!
If you are not the leader you will be the first one.
Keep the fermata of the rest interesting.
Three centimetres of wavy lines, then you play the music.
Somebody singing a far-fetched diagonals from Sibelius’ Finlandia.
Who would sacrifice a violin?
Listen to these gorilla players. (in reference to the Cello section)
Segerstam disease: gastronomical music.
More grease in the pianissimo.
The non-metric pulsator on the podium.
More like James Bond Goldfinger.
It really sounds like some Tom and Jerry accompanimiento sounding.
Use parabolic crescendi. . . they are more animalic.
My left hand will look at you.
We get a plankton plasmatic flimmer.
Each individual is not together.
Please compose the six rests that are missing.
I notice you got one ‘thumbs down’ for your most interesting post! Fascinating to think who can that curmudgeon be?
Here I am living in another timezone, Downunder, and THAT will have me wondering all day today WHICH of the regular grumpy old men (invariably a male) gave you the thumbs down.
The music world has lost….
Best Sibelius First to be heard in Singapore, with the Helsinki Philharmonic, possibly for eternity.
I have never heard of the master. But I love Classical music
God bless Rest in peace
I’ve never saw such a famous person look so awfull and unkempt, couldn’t he have done something to make himself look at least presentable? He looks like a homeless bum. Sorry
Sorry for you…
It’d be curious to see when they release a recording set of all of his symphonies, let alone other pieces he composed.
I very much admire his set of Sibelius symphonies and the Lemminkainen Legends and would have loved to have seen him live.
His passing has tempted me to explore a couple of CDs of his symphonies, namely 81, 162 & 181 (Bergen PO) and 18 (Ondine). Worth hearing?
He was great for the art form. We need more characters like him and fewer “company men” (and women).
I wish I could have experienced his genius while he lived. May he rest in piece.
Sorry to learn this news. That ‘Scheherezade’! A few weeks ago introduced Leif Segerstam’s exhilarating recording to friends. We reflected on the phenomenon of a Brit, a South African and an Uzbek sitting together in Turkiye listening to a work by a Russian composer based on a tale from the Middle East, played by a Spanish orchestra conducted by a Finn. An example of how music knows no boundaries.
Well, it happens to us ALL! I was a Bassoon student at Juilliard between 1963 and 1968. During that time I had the greatest opportunity to work with Pinkus Zukerman, Pearlman, the two Slatkin brothers (Viola/conducting and Cello), Peter Mennin, Dennis Davis and What A GREAT CROWD of Young leaders, TO BE, in our Music World. Yet, Leif, as I knew him, was a very quiet, gentle soul. I enjoyed our times together, especially at the Lunch table. I graduated in 1968, after several years of Great Social Upheavals, so I was Happy to read that Leif had earned such a Distinctive career. RIP, my old Buddy, Pete Simmons
When he conducted in Hamburg in 1974-75, I was a coach there. I learned so much from working with him. Later, when I became a Sibelius addict, his recording of Kullervo moved me greatly. I send my condolences to his family.