On the week's obituary list: Sir Colin Davis, 85, and Adolph "Bud" Herseth, 91, principal trumpet of the Chicago Symphony for an astonishing 53 years (and playing for three more years).
Davis was one of the most beloved conductors of the 20th century. As principal conductor and later president of the London Symphony (1995-2013), he led the musician-run orchestra for the longest period in the self-governing LSO's 109-year-history. (MTT too has an impressive history, principal conductor from 1988 to 1995, principal guest conductor since.)
Davis, who first conducted the LSO in 1959, died on Sunday after a short illness. "He will be remembered with huge affection and admiration," the orchestra said in a statement on its website.
The conductor, who had a special affinity for the music of Berlioz, Mozart, and Sibelius, also had long-lasting relationships with the Royal Opera House, the BBC Symphony, and the English Chamber Orchestra; he is remembered for mentoring many young performers and conductors at the Royal Academy of Music and the Guildhall School. In the U.S., Davis conducted the Boston Symphony and the New York Philharmonic, among others.
Herseth's long tenure with the Chicago as principal trumpet started out, in 1948, as a fluke. The Bertha, Minn., native auditioned in New York, in conductor Artur Rodzinski's Fifth Avenue apartment, for what he thought was a third-trumpet position.
After about an hour, over coffee and cookies, Rodzinski asked him about his professional experience (none), then declared, "Well, you're going to be the new first trumpet in Chicago," according to Herseth, in an interview published 50 years later by the CSO. "To the cognoscenti of symphonic music the world over, Bud is the premier orchestral trumpeter of his time, and perhaps of all time," said a 1994 profile in Smithsonian Magazine. "Wherever the Chicago goes on tour, young players mob him."
Herseth also taught other top trumpet players, many steered to him by Daniel Barenboim, the CSO's former music director, and other conductors."He's got students playing first trumpet all over the world," said Herseth's son, Stephen, a Chicago attorney. "Barenboim would send people in; (Seiji) Ozawa would send people from Japan to take lessons; (Zubin) Mehta sent some from Israel."