Just in: Leif Segerstam has died

The 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.