Herbert Blomstedt Collection

About the collection

The Herbert Blomstedt Collection includes a substantial amount of works, spanning about 500 shelf metres. Represented here are works on music, sheet music, fiction and manuscripts, as well as manuscript facsimiles of old works. Here, too, is a unique music collection from the 18th century, with materials that until recently have been preserved at Östanå Castle in Swedish Uppland. Other works include Swedish, German and English books on art, philosophy, religion, history and cultural history, and a host of periodicals. A great many of the titles are first editions. In addition, there is personal correspondence. The majority of the music material, in the form of literature, orchestral scores and other sheet music as well as recordings remain with Herbert Blomstedt, as he is still working as a conductor. 

The collection showcases Herbert Blomstedt's wide-ranging interest in music, art, literature and science. It prompts reflection on what impact this encyclopedic passion for culture might have had on his artistic progression and development. The collection can be viewed as an effort to acquire literature in order to bring the reader a comprehensive cultural overview of both Swedish and European features. As a result, the collection is valuable in many ways: it provides a well-rounded portrait of Herbert Blomstedt as a cultural personage, and offers a garden of delights to any bookish browser, with ever new, unexpected and delicious food for thought. A stroll along the shelves inspires constant associations, an appetite for reading, and many incentives to further study. 

The Östanå collection

Herbert Blomstedt Collection includes the Östanå collection, originally compiled by singer, musician and actress Christina Fredenheim (1762–1841), and her husband, cembalist Carl Fredrik Fredenheim (1748–1803). Both were members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music, where Carl Fredrik acted as chair in 1798–1799. The Östanå collection has previously been partially catalogued by librarian Cari Johansson of the library of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. A PDF of this catalogue can be accessed via Gupea.

Alte Musikbibliothek

Another music collection that is part of the Herbert Blomstedt Collection is the Alte Musikbibliothek, previously privately owned and with many exceptional works, mainly within musicology. For the Alte Musikbibliothek there is another, separate catalogue in Gupea, which was used during the acquisition of the collection by Blomstedt.

Postcards and stamps

Herbert Blomstedt Collection also includes two larger collections of postcards and stamps - additional materials that Blomstedt enjoyed collecting. Even if the library is mainly interested in the book collection, these two subsets are interesting to anyone looking to immerse themselves in other types of printing. The postcard and stamp collections are excellent entry points for students of visual expression and art in this niche printing production, as well as its thematic variation over time. 

The collection consists of some 35–40 000 postcards sorted in various categories, where Countries make up a large part. Other categories include Illustrators, Art, Music, Topography and Varia. The categories in turn have subsets, sorted according to cities or names. The Varia or Miscellaneous category has some 80 subsets within a wide range of topics, from Advent, Amour, Astrology, and Aviation via Cycling, Folklore, Horses, Healtcare and Mines, to Plants, Theatre, Tobacco and Windmills. Some boxes contain postcards that are yet to be sorted into their respective categories. 

The size of the stamp collection is difficult to estimate, but a rough assessment is that it includes over 100 000 stamps. They are primarily sorted according to their country of origin, and by year for the respective nations. The bulk of the collection has been issued in the 20th century, with a main focus on the 1960s, 70s and 80s. In addition, the collection includes 27 binders with what is known as ”First day covers”, meaning letters or postcards stamped on the day the stamp was issued. There is also a number of binders with various types of commemorative stamps, and some ten binders with WWF Conservation Stamps, issued for the benefit of the World Wildlife Fund in many countries. Another subset consists of binders with stamps from various nations with Nobel laureate motifs. 

Acquisition history

The acquisition history of the collection began in 2007-2008, when Herbert Blomstedt began investigating the possibilities for placing his extensive collections in the care of some suitable organization. This involved a condition on Blomstedt's behalf, that the entire collection would be kept by the same actor, which in turn required special resources for managing the donation, regarding both holding space and competence. 

The then library director of the Gothenburg University library Agneta Olsson and former Chancellor of Gothenburg University Jan Ling travelled to Switzerland to appraise the collections in situ, and estimate their contents, size and more. These discussions resulted in the appointment of the Gothenburg University library as the recipient of Herbert Blomstedt's donation of books, sheet music and archive materials. 

An initial portion of the collection was transferred to the Gothenburg University library in 2010, and since then, the material has been gradually enriched by additional donations from Herbert Blomstedt. As Blomstedt is still active as a conductor and musician, he currently retains a significant portion of the material, as required by his profession. 

The holdings are continuously expanded in consultation with the library.  

Biography

Herbert Blomstedt was born in 1927 in Massachusetts, to Swedish parents. After a few years, the family returned to Sweden. Herbert Blomstedt considers mainly Gothenburg as his childhood hometown, and this is where he first began to study music. Of particular importance was his violin teacher Lars Fermæus, then leader of the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra.

Herbert Blomstedt studied at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, and took musicology at Uppsala University. He would later study conducting with, among others, Igor Markevitch and Leonard Bernstein, as well as contemporary music in Darmstadt, and Baroque music and performance practice at the Schola Cantorum in Basel. His debut performance with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra took place in 1954. 

In 1999, Blomstedt received an honorary degree at the Artistic Faculty at the University of Gothenburg, and has been involved in the design of the university's master's programme at the Swedish National Orchestra Academy, of the Academy of Music and Drama.

Conductor of international renown
Herbert Blomstedt has been the principal conductor of the following orchestras:

1954-1962     Norrköping symphony orchestra 
1962-1968     Oslo Philharmonic
1967-1977     Danish National Symphony Orchestra
1975-1985     Säschsische Staatskapelle, Dresden
1977-1982     Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra
1985-1995     San Fransisco Symphony Orchestra
1996-1998     NDR Sinfonieorchester Hamburg
1998-2005     Gewandhausorchester Leipzig

In addition, he has been made honorary conductor of a number of orchestras, and has received a host of awards and distinctions. In 2012 he was awarded the Royal order of the Seraphim, for "highly outstanding efforts on behalf of Swedish music". He is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music since 1965. On the occasion of Herbert Blomstedt's 80th birthday, the Royal Swedish Academy of Music introduced the Herbert Blomstedt scholarship, awarded every two years to a young conductor. 

Read more

Att ligga skavfötters med Shakespeare - Herbert Blomstedt inaugurational speech about the Herbert Blomstedt Collection at the Humanities library in 2015.

About Herbert Blomstedt in Podiet no. 4, 2020-2021.

Herbert Blomstedt on Wikipedia.

Herbert Blomstedt, Swedish Radio Sommarprat 2024.

Herbert Blomstedt; Digital concert hall of the Berliner Philharmoniker.

Herbert Blomstedt via New York Philharmonic.

SMBF, Swedish branch of the International Association of Music Libraries, Archives and Documentation Centres.

Suggested research topics

• An overview of the collection's contents. What is represented here, and how does it mirror the time and context of the material? 
• Book collecting and book lovers in Sweden and abroad. 
• Facsimile publishing of luxury books and older manuscripts. 
• The Östanå collection, its background and contents. Comparative studies of other old collections of sheet music. 

Please contact us if you have any suggested research topics you would like to share!