Over his extensive professional life, Paavo Berglund elevated multiple orchestras to international prominence as their conductor. He was renowned for his exacting standards and focused particularly on Sibelius's compositions, producing three full sets of the symphonies.
Born in Helsinki on April 14, 1929, Berglund began playing the violin at age 11 on an instrument crafted by his grandfather. During World War II he worked at an iron factory, then launched his performing career in dance orchestras in 1945 and at military officers' dinners the next year. After studying violin at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, he joined the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra in 1949. An encounter with the Vienna Philharmonic under Wilhelm Furtwängler on tour in Finland sparked his own desire to conduct. He journeyed to Vienna, where he observed rehearsals and sessions of both the Vienna Philharmonic and the Vienna Radio Symphony; among these experiences was Furtwängler's recording of Smetana's Die Moldau, which later inspired Berglund to name his own version of the piece his favorite among his discs.
By the mid-1950s Berglund had become assistant conductor of the Finnish Radio Symphony, rising to chief conductor in 1962. His stern podium manner produced a marked improvement in the ensemble's standards. He achieved a similar transformation at England's Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, which he first led as a frequent guest in the late 1960s and where he served as principal conductor from 1972 onward. With that orchestra he made the premiere recording of the Sibelius tone poem Kullervo in 1970. Widely recognized as a Sibelius authority, Berglund committed the complete symphonies to disc on three separate occasions—with the Helsinki Philharmonic, the Bournemouth Symphony, and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, the last in a leaner interpretive approach he preferred in later years. He examined the scores with great care and occasionally introduced controversial alterations to the orchestration, yet his programming ranged widely across other Scandinavian composers as well as Vaughan Williams, Shostakovich, Britten, and additional figures. He held the post of principal conductor of the Helsinki Philharmonic from 1975 to 1979. After relinquishing both his Helsinki and Bournemouth positions that year, he spent several seasons as a traveling guest conductor. His United States debut came with the American Symphony Orchestra in 1978. In 1983 he assumed the principal conductorship of the Royal Danish Orchestra in Copenhagen, and between 1987 and 1991 he led the Stockholm Philharmonic in Sweden. He continued working well into advanced age and the twenty-first century, delivering his final concert in Paris in 2007 with the French Radio Philharmonic Orchestra. Berglund died in Helsinki on January 25, 2012.
More than one hundred recordings survive, several of which have attained classic status through repeated reissues. He documented both the ensembles he directed and a broad spectrum of Romantic and early-twentieth-century works, along with pieces by the contemporary composer Joonas Kokkonen.
